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VAGARIES, 



IN QUEST OF 



THE WILD AND THE WHIMSICAL. 



PIERS SHAFTON, GENT. 



THIRD EDITION. 



" He enjoyed the world as he went, and drew upon content 
for the deficiencies of Fortune. 

Goldsmith. 



. 



jO LONDON: 
PRINTED FOR G. COWIE, 
312, STRAND. 



1833. 



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ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following pages are the confessed records of flirtations 
carried on with the muses in the hey-day of youth and levity. — 
The recalling of them has been the means of beguiling a few 
hours, snatched from different pursuits ; and the author has no 
higher ambition than that they may be equally efficacious to the 
reader. 

Since the publication of the first edition of u Vagaries," in 
1827, it has been reprinted as the first volume of Snatches from 
Oblivion ; under which title, the whole of the author's juvenile 
efforts were intended to be published; but which idea he has, 
from circumstances unnecessary to mention, thought proper to 
relinquish. 



London^ November, 1832. 






LIST OF PLATES. 



I page II 

II 65 

III 101 

IV Frontispiece. 

V 201 

VI 239 






CONTENTS. 





- 




Page. 


Advertisement ...... v 


Trevelyan, Introductory Epistle . 






vii 


Character Hunting 






1 


x\n Adventure on the Appenines . 






11 


The Mystery 






29 


The Young Lady's Tale . 






37 


My First Appearance on the Stage 






53 


The Templar's Story 






65 


The Wandering Jew 






85 


The Rapture of Beneficence 






99 


On the serious Affliction of a good Appetite 




101 


Crumbs for the Critics. 






As the Rainbow to the Storm 




115 


The Lament of Despair 






116 


Fading Flowers . 






118 


Thou art Cold to me now . 






119 


A Farewell to Albion, 1823 






121 


Tell me now that thou art mine 






123 


I behold thee in my dreams 






124 


To Fancy .... 






126 


A sad all hail 






129 


" Gentle Noises" .... 






131 


Thou art Welcome as the Day 






133 


To Spain, in 1823 .... 






134 


A new Arion . . 






136 


Stanzas for Music . 






137 


The Foot of Music 






139 


Come drink with me 






110 



Yl CONTENTS. 

Pagff, 

Love-changes . . . . . .141 

The return of Napoleon, 1815 .... 142 

Ah ! my Soul ...... 143 

I was Sad ....... 144 

To the Soul ...... 145 

To the Past . . . . . . 146 

A Village Funeral . . . . . .147 

" Merry England/' on May Morning . . . 157 

Ruralizing . . . . . . .167 

The Unknown Region . . . . 181 

My Birth-day ...... 199 

Flights in the Air, or Last Intelligence from the Moon . 201 
The Eye of Welcome ..... 222 

The Enchanted Lake ..... 225 

Lost Feelings ...... 243 






CHARACTER HUNTING. 



I have always entertained an unconquerable preju- 
dice against those poets and novelists, who, as if there 
were not misery and vexation enough in the world, 
invariably display the darker in preference to the 
brighter paths of existence. We want not the aid of 
fiction to render us more repining and discontented, 
nor need the fancy and imagination be exhausted in 
coining bitterness and woe, when reality herself is 
hourly convincing us of her fertility. Why should we 
who are groaning beneath the weight of troubles, of 
whose existence we can have no doubt, encumber our- 
selves with those which have no other origin than their 
creator's fancy ? 

There are some in the world for whom nature has 
no other charm save that which can be found in the 
contemplation of a faded leaf, or a withered flower, 
and music no other spell than in the tuneless strings 

B 






Z CHARACTER HUNTING. 

of a broken lyre. For my own part, I would give up 
the sceptre of Croesus for the magical wand of him 
whose command 

" The spirits of past delight obey," 

and the throne of the world for the happy dominion 
over the warmest and kindliest affections of our 
nature. In one sense of the word I am a miser; I 
treasure up every record of a pleasure that is gone,, 
and embalm every relic of a joyous feeling in the 
holiest shrine of my memory. Thus am I fortified 
against the sharpest inflictions of fate, and although she 
may wantonly fling her arrows, I have a medicine in 
my soul which speedily heals the wound, and obli- 
terates the scar. If I am a miser in the acquirement of 
my riches, I am a prodigal in their dispensation. They 
are useless dross when locked up in the chambers of 
my own breast, and I feel their value only in parting 
with them. 

It is for this kind of wealth that I have become a 
citizen of the world ; for ever craving after new 
scenes, and speculating on human characters, I lead an 
unsettled and rambling existence, preferring the sunny 
side throughout the whole of my rambles, though never 



CHARACTER HUNTING. 3 

hesitating to turn out of my way, even though it may 
be darkened by sorrow, or chitted by disappointment, 
in the hopes of meeting an adventure, or a stimulus to 
those feelings which, though not dead, too frequently 
slumber. A ruin mouldering in green decay has a 
charm to me as a voice speaking from the abyss of 
time ; and a red- nosed landlord, with an eye that tells 
of (C quips and cranks," I am far from despising, 
although the subject of his contemplation may never 
verge beyond his home-brewed, or his taste of the 
sublime and beautiful be confined to his buxom dame 
in the interior, or the staring cc Red Lion" on the out- 
side of his dwelling. In a word, I am a weathercock 
of a man, for ever shifting my course as the wind of 
circumstance directs. Cameleon like, my mind takes 
its hue from every prevailing feeling. " I have 
neither wife nor children/' and my affections are as 
yet too centrifugal to be gathered into one exclusive 
point. The world and I are still new acquaintances 5 
may knowledge of each other never cause repugnance 
on either side ! May we jog on like fellow-travellers 
on a long journey, occasionally in a full gallop, but 
more generally in a pleasant canter • changing our 
paces with our different moods, varying the dull 

n2 



4 CHARACTER HUNTING. 

routine, sometimes with a tale, sometimes with a 
sermon, and now and then with a song, by way of a 
fillip. 

Although my vagaries may not always be in keeping, 
I will promise as much cheerfulness as the natural 
caprice of my temper will allow. Unluckily a bundle 
of horrors appear, at the present day, as necessary an 
item in the stock in trade of a writer as a bundle of 
pens. Judging from the lugubrious strains of our 
modern novelists and poets, no man ought to commence 
writing, without being exceedingly miserable, or pre- 
viously crossed in love. I have, to confess the truth, 
very little sympathy for those sorrows which are made 
known to all the world, and unfortunately cannot 
estimate that grief which is to break the heart in a 
stanza, or madrigal. Give me the being who loves, like 
myself, to court nature when her smiles are the brightest 
— the hand which would not intentionally touch a 
string of the heart that never responded with a joyous 
note. I hate the selfish being who merely throws 
the load off his own shoulders to encumber those 
of his neighbours; or who, when his heart is illu- 
mined with joy, shuts it up, lest it should be evapo- 
rated in another's. 



CHARACTER HUNTING. O 

Whatever were the motives, beyond my usual love 
of novelty, which found me in a little village in the 
western part of England, I do* not remember; but 
when arrived, the dulness and monotony, which ap- 
peared the presiding destinies of the place, were 
sufficient to induce me to make instant preparations 
for leaving it. 

Having rambled through the churchyard, which 
contained the usual quantity of epitaphs upon a 
number of worthy individuals, who were, of course, 
the " best parents"— " most virtuous wives" — " sin- 
cerest friends" — and ce dutiful children," as if all virtue 
and worth were buried in one acre and a half of chalky 
earth ; and having amused myself with the perusal of 

" A husband and a parent dear, 
Lies sleeping here ;" 

or with the agreeable diversity on every other tomb- 
stone, of 

" Afflictions sore, 
Long time I bore," 

until bored nearly to death with iangour, I whistled 
myself back in a trice to the " Moon and Seven Stars," 
where a new source of discomfiture arose. My host, 
with an awful longitude of countenance., informed me 



D CHARACTER HUNTING. 

that there was no chance of any conveyance until the 
afternoon, when the "Dorchester Fly" would make its 
appearance. In the mean time, not finding his ale 
arrive at my ideas of malt perfection, I was left to 
take e ' my ease at mine inn," with notliing but my own 
virtues to keep me company. 

After solving a problem drawn with my stick on the 
sandy covered floor, I commenced an elaborate criticism 
on the pictures which adorned the white- washed walls of 
my temporary prison. Five young ladies in blue sashes, 
which my natural acuteness at once discovered to be 
the daughters of Pharaoh, were represented picking 
up a chubby Moses among some very equivocal bull- 
rushes, over the mantel-piece; the pitiable situation 
of the Prodigal Son was characteristically represented 
by an ill looking vagabond, with half a pair of breeches, 
stealing raw turnips, on one side of the room; whilst 
the other was uniform, by a representation on stained 
glass of David embracing Absalom, both of whom ap- 
peared in top boots and buck skin small-clothes, while 
a correct view of the fight between Dan Mendoza and 
Molyneux, the black, was hung by its side as a com- 
panion ! 

On hearing the sound of wheels rumbling along the 



CHARACTER HUNTING. / 

village, my criticism and spleen suspended their ope- 
rations ; but on starting up to hail the approach of the 
knight of the whip, who was to deliver me from this 
castle of indolence, how my rising spirits fell ! The 
vehicle, which was to have been the trophy of the 
achievement, was curtailed of its fair proportions, by 
the absence of a refractory wheel ; and, to my unspeak- 
able grief, I discovered the whole of the passengers on 
foot, giving ample proof that sorrow is not always silent, 
by venting forth their ejaculations, in the shape of angry 
imprecations on the crest-fallen cause of this unpro- 
pitious event, the coachman. He adroitly relieved 
himself of the burthen by throwing the whole of the 
blame on an incipient jehu, whom he had imprudently 
entrusted with the reins, and who had driven exceed- 
ingly well, with the exception of running against a mile- 
stone at the entrance of the village, and upsetting the 
coach ; the mile-stone very naturally came in for its 
share of the curses so liberally distributed, till they at last 
settled, like the helmet of Pallas by unanimous consent, 
on the unconscious head of the surveyor of the district. 
As it would be more stormy than interesting, I will 
waive all description of the feelings of the party when 
they discovered that there was no wheelwright in the 



8 CHARACTER HUNTING. 

village, and that the only chance of getting from there 
was by despatching a messenger to a town twenty miles 
distant. The accommodation of the inn had nothing 
splendid to boast of, and blue- devils soon became the 
order of the hour, till equanimity and something like 
good-humour was restored, by a certain merry little 
gentleman proposing that each of the party assembled 
should, after the most approved fashion of fellow tra- 
vellers in misfortune, entertain the rest either with a 
story, an anecdote, or a song, that being the only means 
they possessed of dissipating the tedious hours which 
would elapse until the wheelwright had arrived and 
completed his operations. 

The party, which by the bye, according to my 
favorite habit of speculating on character and dis- 
position, through the medium of the countenance and 
dress, I had already analyzed, answered to the following 
descriptions. 

A tall thin young gentleman, who was crouched in 
the corner, with his hat partly flapped over his face, 
had a restlessness of expression, an eye perpetually 
wandering, and a nervous tremor which came over 
him whenever he was addressed, which, although it 
might have induced some people to think he was a 



CHARACTER HUNTING. 9 

pick-pocket, made me set him down without hesitation 
for a poet, was the first that courted, or more properly 
speaking, shunned my scrutiny; an intelligent and 
genteel looking girl sat opposite to him, who looked 
seventeen, and (of course) sentimental ; a little dapper 
individual, possessing a pair of merry black eyes, which 
augured a sufficient fund of amusement to carry into 
effect the proposal that he had just made ; a grave and 
gentlemanlike middle-aged man, of a remarkably in- 
tellectual aspect, who I felt thoroughly convinced was 
a clergyman, but whom I subsequently discovered to be 
an actor of distinction ; a fashionable young man, with 
whom the former appeared very intimate, and who 
evidently possessed such an exceedingly good opinion of 
himself, and so tormenting a facility in punning, that 
I felt satisfied he was of the honorable fraternity of 
Knight Templars, and he did not falsify my prediction. 
These, with myself, of whom the reader has most pro- 
bably heard enough, formed the component parts of the 
assembly, seated in the best parlour of " The Moon and 
Seven Stars/' 

It need scarcely be said that there was no one im- 
polite enough to dissent from the proposition of the 
gentleman who had recommended us to make ourselves 

b5 



10 CHARACTER HUNTING. 

amiable, and we were all agreeable to listen, but un- 
luckily none of us to speak. " The proposer was nigh 
taking nothing by his motion/' till the author-like 
gentleman drawing from a small portfolio a MS. of an 
adventure which he affirmed befel him during a conti- 
nental tour., which, to the great relief of all, he read by 
way of a commencement. 

I will not interrupt the threads of the different dis- 
courses by any interludes of my own, but simply ob- 
serve that his example was, after the intervening thanks 
and preliminary apologies, followed by the remainder 
of the party, who, to avail myself of the memory as 
well as of the words of all authors from time immemorial, 
delivered themselves " as follows :*' — 



AN ADVENTURE 



THE APPENINES. 



" Oh ! speak no more ; 
For more than this I know, and have recorded 
Within the red-leaved tablet of my heart." 

Heywood. 



In the course of a continental tour, which I made a 
few years since, I visited Arezzo, which is situated on 
the banks of the Arno, to the south-east of Florence. 
Interesting as this seat of former grandeur is to the 
lover of nature from the beautiful and picturesque 
scenery of its neighbourhood, and to the connoisseur 
from its rich antiquarian remains, yet it possesses a 
stronger stimulus to the enthusiasm of the traveller., 
from its being the birth-place of Petrarch. 

My poetical homage at the shrine of this magical 



12 AN ADVENTURE 

bard was interrupted by an express from a friend, who 
had till now accompanied me on my tour., but from an 
eagerness to reach the " eternal city/' had proceeded 
to it direct from Florence. The purport of this com- 
munication was, that he was at Rome, and ardently 
requesting me to join him, which, although the season 
of the year was the worst adapted for travelling, it 
being the depth of winter, I complied with, and took 
immediate steps for resuming my journey. 

Pursuing the course of the Arno, the magnificent 
pile of the Appenines burst upon my view, their rugged 
peaks almost lost in the blue ether around them, and 
their snow clad sides glittering with every resplendence 
of hue kindled up by the reflection of the sunbeams. 
Elevated by the awful beauty of the scene, I did not 
perceive, till the day had far advanced, the almost im- 
passable state of the road, which, from its adjacency to 
the mountains, was nearly choked up with the snow ; 
when, observing symptoms of perplexity in the postil- 
lion s countenance, I directed him to drive to the 
nearest osteria, resolving to remain there till we could 
procure an efficient guide. As the day-light decreased 
our dangers appeared to become more imminent, and I 
soon discovered, from the postillion's undisguised alarm, 



ON THE APPENINES. J 3 

that he had lost all traces of the road. From our exposed 
situation, and the keen mountain air, he became so be- 
numbed with the cold as to fall powerless into the snow. 
Having placed him in the carriage, I took the reins, 
and endeavoured to guide the horses over an almost 
in?ccessible pass, which, from their having gone many 
miles beyond their intended stage, they were unable to 
ascend without assistance. Environed by danger, I 
still retained my presence of mind, when the moon, 
which had till now, with her friendly beams, warned 
us of the horrors of our situation, deserted us, and the 
horses, after making a desperate plunge, lost their foot- 
ing — the carriage fell a considerable depth. — a tremendous 
crash followed — and I can remember nothing more than 
the severity of the cold, which thrilled through every 
nerve, till I prayed for a release by death from the 
acute sense of my sufferings. 

The first impression which lingered on my memory 
after the event, was that of an object of whose nature 
and appearance I had neither power nor sense to discern. 
It seemed to lie on my breast, and, in the confused state 
of my mind, I imagined it was some compassionate 
spirit exerting upon me its genial influence. When I 
was more perfectly restored to my senses, I found myself 



14 AN ADVENTURE 

alone, buried in the snow, with a gourd containing a 
small quantity of cordial by my side, from what source 
I had no conception ; I perceived no traces of the car- 
riage, nor of the ill-fated postillion and horses, and my 
hunger and thirst becoming irrepressible, I drank a 
small quantity of the liquor in the gourd, which im- 
mediately produced sleepy sensations, and, although 
I was aware of the probable consequence, I could not 
resist the temptation. 

I remember nothing more till I awoke in a small 
room, more resembling a cell than a bed-chamber. 
The couch and the furniture were remarkably old 
and plain, and saving an indifferent picture of the 
Crucifixion, there was nothing in the room which ap- 
proached to ornament. In a vain attempt to collect my 
scattered ideas, I was interrupted by the entrance of a 
venerable old man. He was habited in a tunic of 
coarse serge, secured round the waist by a white cord ; 
and a cowl, which identified him as belonging to a 
religious order, enveloped his head. He was bare- 
footed, and a beard of uncommon length and white- 
ness added to his otherwise remarkable appearance. 
Fixing his eyes upon me with a mild and com- 
passionate earnestness, he offered me a cordial, which I 



ON THE AFPENINE3. 15 

I 

endeavoured to take, but my limbs seemed torpid and 
nerveless ; and being unable to speak, I fancied my- 
self, in the bewildered state of my imagination, to be 
under the spell of enchantment. The old man, with a 
nice perception of the wandering state of my in- 
tellect, after putting the cordial to my lips, motioned 
me to be quiet, and tenderly commenced chafing my 
limbs. 

In this state, and undergoing the same kind offices, 
I remained several days, constantly visited by my 
venerable attendant, and occasionally by a younger man, 
in the same singular garb. As soon as I was enabled 
to inquire, the elder unravelled the mystery, by in- 
forming me that I was within the hallowed walls of 
the Monastery of Alvernia, on the summit of one of 
the loftiest Appenines. It appears that the postillion, 
having recovered the use of his limbs, had reached the 
monastery in safety, where giving information of my 
deplorable condition, messengers with hounds were 
sent in quest of me, when I was discovered by one of 
the latter, and carried in a state of insensibility to my 
present asylum. For this recital I was indebted 
entirely to the elder monk, the younger never having, 
during the whole of his visits, spoke a word, but having 



16 AN ADVENTURE 

preserved a strange, and rather mysterious silence. I 
gradually, but slowly improved, and my observations 
became more inquisitive and acute. As a young 
traveller in search of adventures, and addicted to the 
marvellous, the young monk, to whose kindness I was 
so much indebted, could not but be an object of infinite 
speculation. Never shall I forget the noble expression 
of his countenance, which pronounced him at once of 
high birth, and exalted station. He appeared to be 
under the age of thirty, and was singularly handsome. 
His head was a model of grace, beauty, and intel- 
lectual expression ; shaded by his raven hair and beard, 
it seemed a breathing Italian picture. He was above 
the middle height, and" the exquisite proportion of 
his limbs was not entirely concealed by his mo- 
nastic garb, the simplicity of which rather added 
to, than diminished his picturesque appearance; yet 
it was not personal grace alone that threw so wild 
an air of romance over his presence — it was the 
deep, though subdued melancholy, the prevailing ex- 
pression of his countenance, which excited your 
curiosity, and rivetted your attention. There was a 
listlessness — a passive indifference to the objects around 
him, as if his mind was so thoroughly absorbed in, the 






ON THE APPENINES. 17 

past or the future, as to be unconscious of the present. 
It was only when he prayed, wjiich he did frequently 
by my side, that the workings of his soul were ex- 
pressed on his countenance. All his features were 
then lighted up with enthusiasm and a transient glory 
—when he fixed his eyes on the cross, they seemed 
illumined above mortality; and as virtue, if Virgil 
is right, is more acceptable when in a pleasing form, I 
thought it not presumptuous in me to hope that the 
Being whom he invoked, though regarding the lowest 
of his petitioners with an indulgent eye, would not 
regard less benignantly the prayers of one, who, though 
prostrate before Him seemed created to reign over his 
own species. My faith assured me that my prayers 
were heard, for I quickly regained the use of my 
limbs, though I still remained in a weak and de- 
bilitated condition ■. 

The unvaried silence and impenetrable reserve of 
this young and mysterious being, prevented me from 
ever addressing him further than to express my grati- 
tude for his benevolence, and it was not without diffi- 
culty that I obtained any information respecting him 
from the other monks. He was, as I learned, the Count 
<Ji V , the representative of one of the noblest fa- 



18 AN ADVENTURE 

milies in Italy, and one who, in the phraseology of the 
holy fathers, had given up his rank, titles, spacious do- 
mains, and all earthly ties, and all earthly vanities, for 
the love of God, and the good of Holy Mother Church. 
The cause they were ignorant of, without it originated, 
as they believed, from a disgust of the world, or an 
excess of religious zeal. Although previously ac- 
customed to every luxury and indulgence that illi- 
mitable wealth could bestow, no brother was so 
rigidly severe upon himself, in religious fasts and 
observances, as this singular individual. This was the 
extent of what these venerable brothers were able or 
willing to communicate, and it inflamed, rather than 
abated my curiosity. 

When I was sufficiently recovered to sit up in my 
chamber, the library of the monastery frequently be- 
guiled my tedious hours. The Count, or, as he was now 
called, Father Eugene, to my great satisfaction, fre- 
quently accompanied me in my literary researches. At 
length his reserve gradually became less severe, and 
although our conversation was at first religious, yet, 
when we afterwards entered into more general subjects, 
I was delighted with the depth and penetration of his 
remarks, which, although invariably tinged with a sor- 



ON THE APPENINES. 19 

rowful complexion, discovered a vigor and originality 
peculiarly his own. I was then young, and perhaps 
strangely enthusiastic; and although he seemed wedded 
to a monastic life, I had the vanity to suppose he did 
not object to my attempts at shaking off part of its 
monotony. 

The similarity of our pursuits, and, in many respects, 
of our dispositions, created a mutual confidence. I at 
length adventured to inquire the events of his past 
life, and his inducements, or necessities, for leaving a 
world which would have regarded him as one of its 
brightest ornaments. For a while he seemed agonized 
with the feelings the question excited, till bursting 
from the cell, with an extravagance that was unusual 
to him, he exclaimed — " To-morrow, Signor, you shall 
know all." The night preceding that morrow was past 
by me in restlessness and deep excitement. Scarcely 
had my morning orisons been paid before Father Eu- 
gene was at my side. After he had affectionately in- 
quired after my health, I reminded him of his promise 
— his countenance underwent a slight change, and he 
addressed me to the following effect : 

c< I am the descendant of an ancient and noble 
family. Being an only child, my parents thought them- 



20 AN ADVENTURE 

/ 

selves justified in entertaining the greatest expectations 
of me. On the death of my father, which occurred 
about my fifteenth year, I became the sole anxiety 
of a fond, but ill-judging mother. She beheld with 
enthusiastic delight the advancement I made in every 
kind of knowledge and accomplishment, and the hope 

that warmed her bosom was, that the name of V 

would not only descend untarnished, but acquire greater 
splendor from its inheritance by her son. These hopes 
were blasted — 'twas I that destroyed them ; these fond 
desires remained ungratified to mock their possessor. 
One act — one act alone — was the cause, and it is for 
me to tell the tale of my shame and misery. 

"Hardly had I passed my three and twentieth year, 
when it was considered as a politic step, on account of 
my family and political influence, that an alliance 
should take place between myself and a female of 
equal distinction. The highest honors were within 
my reach — royalty itself deigned to notice me with 
smiles — but my heart and affections had long since 
been pledged in a more lowly sphere. The object of 
my wishes was the daughter of a deceased friend of my 
father, of a noble, though impoverished family, and who 
since had resided under my paternal roof, as the friend 



ON THE APPENINES. 21 

and confidante of the Countess, my mother. Shall I 
speak of beauty ? Oh ! no ; years tave frozen the warm 
current of my veins — afflictions have subdued my sprit 
— long penances and severe mortifications have brought 
low all earthly desires — and yet, Francesca — (here his 
utterance seemed choked, but he immediately recovered 
himself, and continued) — pardon, signor, this weakness, 
ten long years have passed since that word has passed 
these lips ; and now what a chord does it make vibrate! 
" With a mind as exalted as her person was beau- 
tiful, no wonder I became deeply enamoured ; nor was 
I regarded with a colder esteem, for the innocent girl 
loved me with a corresponding faith and enthusiasm. 
I see before me now that dark eye fired with passion, 
and melting with the tenderness of a first affection. 
Whiled away in this delicious dream, could I reckon the 
moments as they flew over my head ? It became the 
surprise of all, particularly of the Countess, that I did 
not avail myself of the flattering prospects which were 
at my choice, till at length the true reason of my 
aversion, or insensibility, was whispered. The Countess 
did not remain long in ignorance, and with all the 
jealous rapidity of her country, she became alarmingly 
incensed against the innocent cause. 



22 AN ADVENTURE 

Ci Francesca soon felt the weight of her displeasure — 
she was expelled from the roof, under which my father, 
with his dying words, swore she should ever meet with 
protection. The despised and insulted girl took refuge 
in the house of a lady of distinction, who, being at 
enmity with my family, received her with exultation. 

" Indignant at the cruelty of the Countess, I felt 
no longer reserved, but acquainted her of my deter- 
mination of making the unfortunate Francesca the re- 
paration I considered due to her, by acknowledging her 
as the future partner of my life and honors. I will 
not attempt to describe the angry and vindictive feel- 
ings with which this declaration was received; the 
Countess knew well the firmness of my resolution 
when determined, and unfortunately had recourse to 
some fiendish advisers, and eventually obtained her 
end. 

cc They saw that my affection for Francesca was the 
life-spring of my existence — the source from whence 
every impulse was dictated. Resistance, sophistry, and 
expostulation were exercised in vain — treachery alone 
remained — and thai I did not escape. At first it was 
darkly intimated — (here his breath grew thick, and 
a convulsion seemed paralyzing his frame) — that the 



a ON THE APPENINES. 23 

conduct of Prancesca was not so circumspect as I had 
imagined. — Hellish insinuation !' could it ever take 
root in my breast ? I rejected it with scorn — but it 
lay rankling in my heart, darkly hid, unknown to me. 
I believed that I had for her the tenderest and most 
boundless confidence, and if a feeling of doubt ever 
crossed my mind, it came in the garb of the fondest 
and most affectionate feeling for her welfare. Moved, 
though unconsciously, by the floating rumors circulated 
at her expense, which, though too indefinite and mys- 
terious to meet and examine openly, made their way, 
and festered in my breast. Viewing every trifling action 
through the jaundiced medium of suspicion, I at last 
began to think that there might be some ground for the 
various insinuations of which she was the object — and 
though the belief was a poisoned dagger to my rest, 
to think she was aught else than what my fancy had 
painted, I still nursed it in the folds of my heart. Fine 
were the threads of which my luckless fate was woven 
— doubt succeeded to disquiet — and suspicion followed. 
Insensibly actuated by the malignant, though trackless 
falsehoods that were invented at the expense of her 
reputation, I viewed every token of her affection with 
distrust, and the fond confiding of her generous heart 



24 AN ADVENTURE 

with the withering eye of jealousy. By degrees I was 
tortured with the belief, that the caresses she lavished 
on me were not confined to me alone ; and although it 
harrowed my heart to suspect her of infidelity, yet I 
felt the vulture gnawing there, in spite of every effort 
to dislodge it. The soul of love is confidence in its 
object — without this, it is an unholy fire which scorches 
while it warms, and withers the home it is cherished in. 
As my sentiments became less pure, my passions as 
rapidly increased. Poor infatuated girl ! innocent as 
thou wast, with only the crime of loving, beyond 
restraint, the wretch destined to betray thee ! 

" Why do I linger over this scene of misery and guilt ? 
my soul recoils at the recital, as at the committal. 
Could I share my name with one — could I take to my 
bed one — of whom a doubt existed? And yet, was I to 
be restrained from the possession of those charms which 
the damning voice of jealousy assured me were not 
withheld from others ? No: she told me she loved me — 
that I was all to her. Could she deny me ? I resolved 
on putting her protestations to the test. I poured forth 
my soul — -ungovernable passion lent me language. I 
was answered only by tears and entreaties, which I 
regarded with mingled compunction and misgivings of 



ON THE APPE NINES. 25 

my purpose. I succeeded. I will hasten to a con- 
clusion of a narrative so fraught with horror. The con- 
sequences attending her error soon made known to 
Francesca her wretched situation — she entreated — she 
hung upon me — and, with the scalding tears of misery, 
implored me to restore her to the world, ere she became 
a disgrace to it. Could I then suffer a feeling of doubt 
to enter my mind ? Yet, influenced by conflicting feel- 
ings, again I refused — and, smitten to the heart by a 
reproachful look, for a while I forsook her. 

"But the day of retribution drew near, and its 
thunder was impending over me ; the situation of the 
betrayed Francesca was no longer confined to my own 
knowledge 5 every shadow now seemed to be substan- 
tiated — every idle rumor of former levity wore an air 
of reality — she had become a thing irrevocably dis- 
honored, and contaminated with infamy — she was 
pitilessly turned from the only roof that sheltered her, 
to shame and to destruction. 

(C A spark of feeling yet haunted my breast, aye, one 
of affection also, though in vain had I endeavoured to 
stifle it, and it came in full force when the victim of my 
guilt was suddenly overtaken with the most appalling 
of its consequences. At this awful crisis, reason began 

c 



26 AN ADVENTURE 

to exert her influence over me ; I trembled for the past, 
but with a strong determination for the future. At 
last it was over — we were parents, but not a face of 
joy beamed on our offspring — Francesca fixed her eyes 
with a look of resignation towards Heaven, as if sup- 
plicating for, yet doubtful of, its forgiveness. Could 
I then entertain a doubtful feeling of her innocence ? 
No : once more it illumined her countenance, but for 
the last time; her spirit seemed mingling with some- 
thing of a purer nature. She addressed me in words 
so sad, yet so forgiving, that they still vibrate in my 
heart. She knew, she said, that I had doubted ; but 
deemed it right ere she resigned her breath to its 
Almighty Giver to part with it in declaring that, if 
loving me beyond any thing else on earth — beyond 
even all that was amiable in her nature, which she had 
sacrificed for my happiness — was guilt, she was guilty. 
A proud yet unearthly expression seized her features, 
and seemed to declare her soul was lost in a contem- 
plation of the loftiest nature; then suddenly casting her 
eyes towards me, with a look of tenderness and for- 
giveness, she pointed to her infant, and gently breathed 
— husband ! thou art a father ! * * 

Husband ! Father ! one moment, and wifeless and 



ON THE APPENINES. 27 

childless the next. The ill-fated fruit of treachery 
breathed its last almost with its first breath — I saw it 
lying dead on the bosom of its mother — I gazed on 
those eyes which once looked up with so much affection 
to mine,, now glazed, fixed, and insensible. I flung 
myself franticly on the bosom that sacrificed its peace 
for my happiness — I kissed again, and again, the cold 
lips that breathed with such fondness my name — 
I called myself her murderer — and felt I was such." 

He uttered these words with an appalling vehemence, 
and then fell on his knees, covering his face with his 
hands. I heard the deep sobs burst from his breast, 
and saw his whole frame writhing with agony. Ere I 
could find utterance he rushed from his cell, and I 
never saw him afterwards. 



c2 



THE MYSTERY. 

A STAGE-COACH ADVENTURE. 



*' Send those sad people 

That hate the light, and curse society ; 

Whose thoughts are graves, and from whose eyes continually 

Their melting souls drop out, send those to me ; 

And when their sorrows are most excellent, 

So that one grief more cannot be added, 

My story, like a torrent, shall devour 'em." 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 



It was on a foggy evening, in the beginning of a late 
year, that I felt a strange and uncontrollable impulse 
to witness the execution of a notorious malefactor, 
whose doom was fixed for the following day. Being 
unable to repress my curiosity, I made instant prepa- 
rations for the journey, as the event was to take place 
a considerable distance from town. It was on one of 
those nights that our countrymen are said to have a 
more than usual penchant for a halter — wet, dark, foggy, 
and miserable — the heavens and the earth all seemed 
wrapped up in one melancholy gloom: the dogs, as 



THE MYSTERY. 



they perambulated the slippery pavement, dropped 
their ears, and crawled along with their tails- between 
their legs, as if labouring under the heaviness of the 
atmosphere ; while men, women, and children, glided 
almost imperceptibly through the fog, like vague and 
indefinite beings of another world. Piccadilly was a 
city of the dead ; the entrance of the Burlington Ar- 
cade yawned like the gates of the Inferno, while the 
deep blood-tinge of the lights through the fog ren- 
dered the resemblance more fearfully striking. The 
horns of the coach-guards, and the shouts of the cads, 
seemed proceeding from invisible beings, for not an 
object was discernible at a yard's distance. All was 
darkness, chaos, and mystery. Nature and my own 
feelings appeared equally averse to the scene I was 
about to view, but swayed by some malevolent destiny, 
I persisted in my resolution; and, accordingly, took 
my seat outside, on the back of the coach, which set off 
immediately afterwards. Like the chariot of Phaeton, 
the vehicle appeared to dash unguided through the 
clouds, for neither coachman nor horses were visible. 
Not until we had reached the venerable town of Ed- 
monton did I appear to be in possession of any one of 
my faculties; and then, what was my horror and 



THE MYSTERY. 31 

alarm at being startled by a deep and unmeaning 
whisper, in a most sepulchral tone, which seemed 
neither addressed to me, nor aught else that was visi- 
ble. The voice was evidently close to my ear 5 and 
oh ! miserable man, I could see nothing. Soon, how- 
ever, a sudden jolt of the vehicle quieted my fears, by 
assuring me of the presence of another being, not a 
foot from me, whom the fog had till now rendered 
effectually obscure. 

The whisper was again renewed, but the sounds, as 
if in unison with the scene, were all equivocation and 
mystery. I remained listening with a fearful and 
breath-drawn attention, till my ears caught broken syl- 
lables, such as, " the night" — <c dark as h- — " — " aye, 
trust me there ;'] a short diabolical laugh, or rather yell, 
interrupted the mysterious speaker ; my heart flut- 
tered within me — I could hear it knock against my 
ribs. There was evidently a desperate plot of theft or 
murder in contemplation, and I, by my silence, was a 
mute accessory; a pause ensued, and an opportunity 
presented itself; but what was I to do, a word might 
have cost me my life. Convulsed with agitation, I 
listened again — " Dickens must not know of the job, 
d — n him — he peached at the last assizes." " Aye, you 



32 THE MYSTERY. 

was near taking a swing, Jack" — a tremendous oath 
was here uttered aloud. After an awful chasm, this 
mysterious dialogue continued, and I caught the fol- 
lowing words at intervals : — " Who holds the lantern ? 
kegs — brandy — blockade." Delusive hope ! they might 
be only preparing for a smuggling transaction. Alas ! 
how soon was I undeceived. <c What arms?" — cs pops in 
prime order" — cc cast the plums myself." " Ar'n't you 
afraid of Mother Grundy?" " No, d — n the old cat; 
she loves too well a drop"— of blood, I silently ejacu- 
lated. They were murderers then, indeed ! I was 
stupefied with horror ; I heard them press closer still ; 
the low fiendish laugh smothered in their throats, but I 
could not catch a sound of their voices, so deep was 
their whisper ; three words alone did I hear — three, 
but what volumes they spoke — " bury them after- 
wards." With breathless anxiety I waited for the 
reply, which was almost distinct — " in the gravel pit 
of the wood — no chance of ever being found out." At 
these awful words, which apparently conveyed the 
assurance of the performance of the bloody deed, the 
principle of life seemed annihilated within me, my 
knees knocked together, a cold sweat bedewed me, 
and I nearly fell off the edge of the coach. How long 



THE MYSTERY. 33 

this suspension of faculties continued I know not. On 
the first gleam of returning reason I found myself 
extended on the floor of an old-fashioned room; a 
rushlight in a lantern just served to render the dark- 
ness visible, and to enable me to discover that I was 
surrounded by groupes of great coats, piled into heaps, 
each of which continually sent forth a sonorous blast, 
much resembling snoring. So bewildered was my 
mind, that it was a long time before I discovered that 
I had arrived at an inn in the place of my destination, 
and was then in the traveller's room, which I pre- 
sumed was made our dormitory, in consequence of all 
the beds in the house being engaged. In vain I en- 
deavoured to settle myself to repose : the conversation 
I had heard on the outside of the stage still rung dole- 
fully on my ears. Half sleeping, half waking, my 
imagination conjured up the scene I fancied about to 
be performed. I saw the victim f ' in my mind's eye" 
sleeping in imagined security — alas ! for the last time. 
The murderers enter with looks of dark determination 
written on their features — the instruments sharpened — 
their edge seemed to grate on my ear — and in an- 
other moment plunged in the heart's blood of the 
wretched victim. I heard the parting cry of agony 

c5 



34 THE MYSTERY. 

sever the soul from the body. Merciful powers, can 
such things be ? when a groan, breath deeply drawn, 
convinced me I need not court my imagination for 
horror. Hardly had another moment elapsed, ere I 
heard a deep sepulchral whisper, which seemed 
strongly to resemble that which I had heard on the 
coach — u Are you asleep, Jack ?" " No : its the work- 
ings of that confounded" — conscience, I filled up the 
chasm with — " keeps me awake." " Such gripings" 
of remorse, uttered I to myself — (here another groan, 
long and deep, served to render the climax more hor- 
rible). " Weren't you concerned in the job on ■ ■ 
Heath?" " All by chance." " How did he die r" "He 
struggled most infernally ; I thought at first I hadn't 
hit the mark, but I am no bungler ; prayed for his wife 
and children; told me the blood would be on my 
head; told me he forgave me with all his life and 
heart ; asked me to shake hands. I asked his pardon, as 
much as one gentleman could do for another in such a 
case — (hideous levity !) — heard him choke like — and 
then — why, what then ? he kicked the bucket." — 
Heavens ! what a disclosure ; did I live, did I breathe^ 
and hear it given ? It was not, however, all ; the 
ruffian continued — " Never sent a finer fellow out of 



THE MYSTERY. 35 

the world since I began on my own account ; neither 
watch in his fob, nor money in. his pocket ; half sorry 
I did the job; only got eight and sixpence for his 
clothes ; kept the shirt myself, as I had none to wear ; 
and my wife says I must dress like a gentleman, and 
cut up the waistcoat to make Tom a jacket. Even 
Ikey, who is a dab at the slaughtering business, con- 
fessed he never saw a job so genteelly done ; not seven 
minutes and a half from — till all was over ; he looked 
for all the world as if he was asleep ; once I thought 

he opened his eyes — what a fright I was in." — 

" Who got the body }" (Another pause.) " Determined 
not to be done out of my parseqaites — why, an't I a 
right to my honest earnings as well as — (here occurred 
the name of a celebrated commander) who kills fifty 
men where I do one ? — I put him in a sack, and took it 
to the Blenheim Repository; Brookes gave me a five 
pound note, and two of the students offered more : but 
I like to be honorable." Heaven and earth, what a 
disclosure ! " The deed was done !" He had confessed 
he was a Murderer ! The blood still was clotting in 
his hands 5 I looked in his face — 'twas savage beyond 
description j a wild ferocity gleamed from his sunken 
eyes, while a grin of demoniacal meaning curled his 



36 THE MYSTERY. 

lips, and discovered his yellow and shagged teeth. I 
know not what I felt at the sight of this monster ; my 
tongue stiffened -, every drop of blood seemed to boil 
within me. Animated by a super-human impulse, in 
total disregard to my own safety, I seized the mis- 
creant by his collar — " Wretch ! outcast ! speak ; who 
and what are you ?" " Me, master ! you need not 
clench so hard; John Ketch, executioner to the Sheriffs 
of London and Middlesex, at your service!" 



... 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 



" And this is woman's fate : — 

All her affections are called into life 

By winning flatteries, and then thrown back 

Upon themselves, to perish, and her heart, 

Her trusting heart, filled with weak tenderness, 

Is left to bleed or break." 

Landon. 



During the disastrous period of the rebellion in Scot- 
land, a party of the chevalier's adherents were sur- 
prised by a detachment of loyalists. Although greatly 
inferior in regard to numbers and ammunition, these 
enthusiastic supporters of an almost hopeless cause 
determined not to yield while there remained a strug- 
gle to be contested. The odds were, indeed, fearfully 
against them ; but as they knew death was the worst 
that could befall them, a fate which seemed terrorless 
in comparison to an ignominious defeat, every nerve 
was braced with the assurance that the die was about 
to be thrown, on which their certainty of victory or 



38 THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 

disgrace depended. " We will conquer or die/' said 
each to the other, and they dealt around them with a 
desperation, so heightened with despair, that declared 
they knew no other alternative. 

Vehement as their endeavours were, the disad- 
vantages to contend with were too insuperable to 
admit of even a qualified hope of success. Their am- 
munition had long been expended, and their broad 
swords were but a poor opposition J;o the powerful 
artillery of the enemy ; still, inferior as their means 
of resistance became, they made terrific havoc. But 
it was to no purpose ; not a discharge took place but 
a chasm followed in their little army, till they were 
reduced to so small a number, that to have attempted 
any further resistance would have been a voluntary 
suicide. The two first in command had already fallen, 
and only one field officer, and he very young, remained 
out of the number which had entered the field. Des- 
perate as his situation was, he at first determined to 
throw himself on the enemy's sabre, till the remem- 
brance that he might still be of service to the cause 
which he had adopted animated him with the hope of 
success ; and, although fainting with the loss of blood, 
he set spurs to his jaded steed, and retreated towards 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 39 

the wood; with such of his company as were able to 
follow. 

The loyalists pursued, and offered them terms of 
capitulation ; a fresh attack was their only reply. This 
was the last burst of their fury : it was goading the 
tiger in his den. Encompassed on all sides, and dis- 
daining every qualified offer of clemency, they fell 
victims of their own lion-heartedness, which, reckless 
as it was, had it been excited with equal temperance 
of thought as enthusiasm, would have been sufficient to 
have carried down their names in the stream of immor- 
tality. 

The young officer, Colonel Macfarlane, escaped, 
though not without a fresh wound, which, added to 
the many he had already received, rendered him care- 
less of the duration of a life, which was no longer a 
blessing, while useless in the cause for which he had 
pledged it. 

As the enemy had left him for dead, he lay in this 
deplorable situation for a considerable time, till either 
a return of strength, or the powerful energies of his 
mind, would not permit him to remain longer in a 
state of inactivity. With some difficulty he suc- 
ceeded in mounting his favorite steed, and endea- 



40 



THE YOUNG LADY S TALE. 



voured to gain the border of the wood, which, with the 
help of a cloak that a warm-hearted loyalist had spread 
over him, when he fell apparently lifeless from his 
horse, he hoped to clear undetected. 

He had passed the confines of the wood, and had 
reached the domains of Sir Henry Macdonald, a zea- 
lous partisan of the royalists, when, in consequence of 
the severe exercise, and the irritation of his mind, his 
wounds began to bleed afresh ; no longer able to sup- 
port himself, he fell headlong from his horse, and there 
remained without sense or motion. 

It happened that this spot was a wild and romantic 
glen, the favorite ramble of Flora Macdonald, the 
only remaining child of Sir Henry. She had lost her 
mother during her infancy, and had chiefly resided 
under the care of a maiden aunt, in the western islands 
of Scotland, till she approached towards womanhood, 
when her father, during the few intermissions of war, 
required the solace of her society. She was of a sin- 
gular, yet most amiable temper. Unaccustomed from 
her infancy to any restraint in her education, being the 
very idol of her aunt, she indulged in all the eccentri- 
cities of her mind. It was her delight to shun the 
society of those the best adapted for her years, and in 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 41 

rambling amidst the wild scenery of her native moun- 
tains,, where, in listening to the legendary lore, and the 
ancient ballads of their superstitious inhabitants, asso- 
ciated with the romantic objects around her, she be- 
came more than ordinarily susceptible of those gentle 
feelings, whose keen edges are too frequently lost in a 
better knowledge of the world. 

The young officer remained on the spot where he 
fell for above an hour, when his senses partially re- 
turned. On his opening his languid eyes, the first 
object that was presented to them was that of a young 
and beautiful female bending over him in a compas- 
sionate attitude. Her look, her smile, was that of a 
superior race of beings; and, as the white robes, so 
carelessly thrown over her, floated in the wind, he 
imagined either that he was in the world of spirits, or 
that Providence had sent one of his ministers to succour 
him in his helplessness. He was, however, soon con- 
vinced of his mistake, by her gently placing his head 
on a mould of earth, and gliding quickly from the spot. 
He strained his aching eyes for the last glimpse of her 
sylph-like form as it bounded through the glen, and 
only when it was totally out of sight did he feel emo- 
tions of hope and fear, which he could by no means 



42 THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 

analyze. Were they inspired by the melting look of 
tenderness,, the soft sigh that swelled her gentle bosom 
when he first beheld her, the thrilling touch of her 
small white hand, as she placed his head on the bank, 
or the exquisite expression of pity and sensibility that 
animated her beautiful countenance when she left 
him ? " Is this a being of earth, or a spirit of Heaven ?" 
he mentally exclaimed. His memory told him he had 
wandered much, and, as he had besides but an indis- 
tinct remembrance of the events of the preceding hours, 
he thought the figure was no more than a frail, though 
beautiful creation of his fancy. Indeed it was too bright 
for reality — too visionary to belong to the world. 

The light steps of Flora quickly brought her to her 
father's mansion ; breathlessly she entered the room 
where he was engaged in writing despatches of the 
memorable events of the day. " Why, how now — 
what ails you?" was his first exclamation. " Oh ! father ! 
rise, quick ! Where's Evan ? There's a cavalier bleeding 
to death in the glen — he appears as if he had been en- 
gaged in the horrid encounter of Glenmore." 

The brave heart of the knight did not suffer him to 
wait till he heard whether he was a Jacobite or a loy- 
alist, but instantly prompted him to sally out with 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 43 

Evan Douglass,, a young brother soldier, and their beau- 
tiful guide, that he might offer succour and protection. 
As soon as they had arrived at the glen, they found 
the colonel insensible, and to all appearance dead. 
' J Alas ! " sobbed Flora, " we are too late 5 he must have 
died since I left him, for he has moved from the spot 
where I placed his head." " By his cloak I perceive 
he is a loyalist," said Evan ; " there is one more stout 
heart added to the heavy list." ' ( Not yet, my worthy 
Douglass ; I hope that he may still recover, and, by the 
help of Flora's nursing, be yet a staunch defender of his 
king and country. But who can he be ? these features 
have an air too noble to belong to an individual of in- 
ferior rank, and are too striking and handsome to have 
escaped our notice if he had been at Glenmore." 

<e There was an officer of the Pretender's party who 
fought as if Heaven and earth depended on his sword, 
and these features strongly remind me of him," replied 
Evan. Before they had time for any further ex- 
aminations, Flora, who had flown back to the house, 
returned, with a host of servants bearing a couch, on 
which the soldier, seemingly a corpse, was conveyed to 
a chamber in her father's hospitable mansion. In 
those dangerous times, when Scotland was but thinly 



44 THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 

populated, and the frequent encounters diminished its 
inhabitants., it may be supposed that medical assistance 
was difficult to be procured. Evan, who had been 
wounded in the affray, had had his arm dressed by the 
military surgeon, who immediately joined the remnant 
of the victorious army to head-quarters. He therefore 
very confidently placed himself under the care of the 
beautiful Flora, who had now two objects for the 
exercise of her medical knowledge. The stranger for 
a while did not appear likely to require any more as- 
sistance on earth, but by close attention he partially 
recovered his senses, to the manifest delight of his 
young nurse. In the meantime, from his uniform, it 
was discovered, to the visible disappointment of Sir 
Henry, that he belonged to the opposite party. To 
harbour a rebel in his house — to make it a receptacle 
for an enemy to his king, was, to the loyal heart of Sir 
Henry, as heinous a crime as any in the calendar. It 
was treason by the laws of his country to afford refuge 
to a partisan of the Stuart family, but yet it was re- 
pugnant to the laws of his Maker, and those of social 
life, to turn a fellow-being adrift in such a pitiable 
situation. Honor and conscience had a severe struggle, 
but the feelings of humanity triumphed over bonds of 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 45 

authority ; for he found it a vain attempt to reply to 
his daughter's prayers, and the young soldier's wounds, 
by quotations from acts of parliament. He at last de- 
termined to give what assistance he could to the officer, 
till he should be sufficiently recovered to seek another 
asylum. The improving appearance of the brave 
sufferer gradually repaid the beautiful eyes of his 
anxious watcher, who witnessed his recovery with a 
heartfelt and deeply-breathing interest. As the ener- 
gies of his mind gradually developed, he became to 
her more and more engaging. Her soul, that first 
clung to him from the impulse of all the warmer feel- 
ings of a woman's nature, became fully tempered to 
receive a feeling equally intellectual and refined. His 
large dark eyes gradually assumed their wonted bril- 
liancy, and his lovely attendant watched with un- 
conscious delight the returning glow of his cheek. 
Sir Henry at length consented to hold some com- 
munication between his guest, when, with a mixture of 
satisfaction and regret, he discovered that their an- 
cestors had formerly fought side by side, in the same 
glorious cause, and under the same standard — that of 
Prince Rupert, atthe memorable battle of Marston Moor. 
The invalid, as he increased in the good opinion of 



46 THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 

his host, improved in his health and good looks, to the 
unconcealed satisfaction of his romantic little nurse. 

With a disposition naturally enthusiastic, and too 
blandly susceptible of the kindlier passages of our 
nature, her feelings were evidently of a deeper glow 
than mere benevolence and philanthropy. No wonder 
that the unsophisticated mind of the girl should be so 
engrossed by its object. The situation in which he 
first engaged her attention, when pity and sympathy 
were naturally awakened in his favor — the gratitude, 
seemingly blended with the warmth of affection, which 
beamed from his eyes whenever he turned them towards 
her — his person, which to her was the bean ideal of 
chivalry and romance — all came in array against her 
judgment ; and before she herself was conscious of it, 
she loved him with all the enthusiasm and tenderness 
which was inherent in her disposition, or which a woman 
can ever display in the delicate impulses of a first 
affection. 

It is scarcely possible to imagine a feeling more 
innocent and refined than that which now became the 
life-spring of her heart. Had she but a moment re- 
flected on the small prospect of their future felicity, 
she would have endeavoured to fortify her heart with 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 47 

indifference., rather than abandon it to the contemplation 
of an object it could never obtain. She thought not of 
the likelihood of their union,, or the probabilities of their 
separation ; the heavenly delight of the present was 
all to her ; and love knows not the avarice of foregoing 
the fleeting moment, in the anticipation of the years of 
future misery. As he gradually recovered his strength, 
her heart gladdened with innocent gaiety. She would 
gaze on the form, which, yet bending to her for sup- 
port, was still a living ornament of the earth ; and as 
she looked on the brow from which she had so lately 
removed the clammy dews of sickness, flushing with 
hope and returning vigor, she felt a secret glow of 
satisfaction and pride, of which she had, till then, been 
unconscious, and she blessed the power which had 
ordained her the agent of His benevolence. 

When he was sufficiently recovered to leave his 
room, she became his guide in the romantic neigh- 
bourhood, and related to him the traditions of her 
favorite bards, while he would cast a witchery round 
the scene, by the elegance of his mind and the blandish- 
ments of polished life, which, when exercised by 
him, seemed to lose their emptiness, and acquire a fasci- 
nation and materiality. 



48 THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 

In the simplicity of her wishes, she had asked for 
no more than a heart which would beat with the same 
impulses as her own, and to which she might transfer 
those thoughts and feelings which she withheld from 
others, from the apprehension of their being ridiculed 
as fanciful, or despised as unintelligible ; and the boon 
seemed at length realized in a form which had already 
enamoured her fancy. O love ! thou art, in the morn- 
ing of youth, the herald of hopes too bright for reality; 
'tis well thou art transitory, and the forerunner of 
misery, for were thy power here permanent, the heaven 
on earth would be so complete, that the heart of man 
would not believe there was another and more delightful 
sphere. 

It was on one evening, when their steps had wandered 
to the very glen where she first saw him faint and 
helpless, that he seemed more than usually enthusiastic. 
He spoke of the everlasting obligations he was under 
to her — first, for her pleading on his behalf, and watch- 
ing with unremitting attention, regardless of fatigue 
and confinement ; and, in fine, for a thousand attentions 
that a stranger, not to mention an enemy, could never 
have expected. " Can I ever forget them ? No ! The 
vows of gratitude I have made are registered in Hea- 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 49 

ven, where they will remain in evidence against me, 
should I ever prove cold or ungrateful.'' She glanced 
a look of implicit belief and unconscious affection, and 
listened with a glow of anxious feeling, when he said, 
in a tone betwixt gaiety and gravity, " That there was 
one, who, however weak he might be in expressing his 
sense of her kindness, would not remain silent or un- 
grateful, as the following day would testify/' Who 
can this one be? thought the agitated girl; — he has 
seldom or never spoken of his family, but rather avoided 
the topic. He had mentioned that he had a father and 
a mother doatingly fond of him. It must be his mother ; 
for who, she thought, was so likely to feel gratitude for 
the preserver of life as she who first nourished it. He 
had spoken of a sister too, on whose happiness his very 
life depended. " Oh !" she thought to herself, " how 
sweet, how enchanting it would be for his own sister to 
clasp me in her arms, and thank me with her own voice. 
How delicious the thought, to weep the full reward on 
her bosom !" 

In rapturous expectation she counted the slow 
minutes till the arrival of the dearly anticipated being 
was announced. When the hour did approach how 
high her heart beat, till the noise of a carriage pro- 

D 



50 THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 

nounced the expected arrival. Macfarlane was present; 
and although she did not perceive that overwhelming 
expression of delight in his features, she thought he 
seemed restless and impatient. At length the door 
opened — she looked forward expecting to behold an 
aged matron, when a young and lovely female rushed 
into the room, and, exclaiming Edward, threw herself 
into the arms of the young soldier. " It is his sister — 
his own sister — how I long to clasp her to my heart." 

The young lady had disengaged herself from the 
colonel's embrace, and as the happy enthusiast sprung 
forward to embrace her, he, with a firm and graceful 
spring, in the same deep and beautiful tones that first 
won her heart, exclaimed — "Miss Flora Macdonald, 
my wife." f His wife !" she uttered with a piercing 
shriek. <c His wife !" and gazing on him with a look 
fraught with love, astonishment, and despair, she fell 
on her face. He raised her up, but she was of a death- 
like chill and whiteness; the blue veins of her neck 
seemed as if starting from her skin ; he called imme- 
diately for assistance, and in another moment a crimson 
stream bubbled from her lips. Her father rushed in, 
and calling for his child, was just in time to see the 
last ebb of life departing — she had broken a blood 



THE YOUNG LADY'S TALE. 51 

vessel. For a moment her eyes beamed a brilliancy 
almost superhuman ; she moved her lips,, and at length 
feebly uttered — " Your forgiveness, dearest lady ; one 
kiss — 'tis the first and the last. I have not wronged 
you." The agonized wife parted off the clustering 
ringlets from the forehead of the dying girl ; and as her 
lips pressed the chilly surface she shrieked aloud. The 
father rushed forward, but the spirit of the injured one 
had fled to that home, where the coldness and selfish- 
ness of the world cannot enter, and where the best 
feelings will bloom free from deceit and disappointed 
hope. 



D 'J 



MY FIRST APPEARANCE 

ON 

THE STAGE. 



" This is something like 
The entertainment of adventurous knights 
Entering enchanted castles." 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 



It would be more tedious than amusing to trace the 
source from which my love of the stage originated. 
If I could be indebted to instinct for it, I believe such 
a circumstance probable. It was not an overweening 
attachment, it was a passion, a part of my existence. 

Ere I trod a board (I was not a mere Mr. — ,) I 

was by turns an Othello, a Pierre, a Timon, or a Brutus ; 
I appeared not to possess a thought of my own, or at 
least one that was not gathered from my favorite study. 
I moved — I acted — on an imaginary stage, and peopled 
it with beings of my mind's own fashioning. 

The profession for which I had originally been in* 



54 MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 

tended, was the least likely to rivet a fluctuating mind, 
or captivate an imagination which had been permitted 
to riot in all the loose luxuriance of intellectual dissi- 
pation. That I shook off its trammels, and became a 
wanderer on the face of the earth in pursuit of my 
favorite occupation, will not surprise you. In true 
devotion to the tragic muse, I determined on encoun- 
tering all the sufferings and vicissitudes that her vota- 
ries are doomed to experience, ere their hopes are 
crowned with even qualified success. Although the 
scene is acted, I feel no inclination to recount the 
privations of a provincial actor — let the curtain fall over 
their remembrance. My performances had been limited 
to a few private rehearsals, or village displays ; and 
though the applause was pretty freely administered, I 
did not ascribe it to any individual merit, but rather as 
an unction to a propensity my friends must have dis- 
covered to have been irradicable. 

This want of confidence in my own abilities might 
have arisen from that refinement of taste my enthu- 
siastic love of the drama had acquired — I therefore, un- 
like the generality of censors, viewed my own faults 
with so miscroscopic an eye, that I candidly admit de- 
spairing of obtaining any thing like eminence in the 



MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 55 

profession I had so prematurely adopted. Thus ex- 
cluded by my own precipitateness from the path of life 
for which I had been educated, and finding that to 
which my inclinations led me of the most precarious 
nature, I became extremely dejected. Abandoned 
through my own folly by my family, and looked upon 
by individuals in every way inferior to myself with an 
eye of distrust or contempt, I deeply repented of the 
step I had taken. But still the wandering light that 
had first led me astray was the star which shed a 
brightness over all my hopes and prospects. To return 
to my family was impossible, the submission they re- 
quired I considered greater than my error, and more 
than my uncurbed spirit had been accustomed to brook. 
It was under the influence of these feelings that I was 

called on to play Jafner in a barn, near L , in 

. The character well agreed with the morbid 

temperature of my mind, overshadowed as it was by 
disappointment, and defeated expectation. Like Jaftier 
I felt a glow in my soul perpetually warring with the 
clay it inhabited, and could with him reproach nature 
for permitting it to crave for 

" All the thoughts and elegant desires 
Which fill the happiest man," 



5f> MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 

when its hemisphere was clouded by adversity and 
penury. Thus imbued with a predisposition for the 
character, I entered very fully into its spirit, with 
which my own feelings too well accorded, so that in 
uttering the language and sentiments of Jaffier, I felt 
I was giving vent to emotions that had till then been 
buried within me, for want of a sufficient power to 
grant them deliverance. In short, I completely identified 
myself with the great original. Fortune when ap- 
parently most coy is in reality most willing \ like the 
Iris, she only loses one hue, to give space for another 
more beautiful. On this very evening, the leading pro- 
prietor of one of our Metropolitan theatres happened 
to be a witness of my performance. Knowing him to 
be a man of sound taste and judgment, his presence at 
first embarrassed me : but I found it, as the play pro- 
ceeded, a stimulus to greater exertion. On the con- 
clusion, to my equal surprise and joy, he paid me a 
visit behind the scenes, and, after passing a handsome 
compliment on my abilities, inquired whether I felt 
sufficient confidence in them to make a trial on the 
London boards. Prompt and unexpected as this pro- 
posal was, I had presence of mind enough to admit of 
no other disinclination than a fear of my success. The 






MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 57 

following morning he renewed his inquiries, promising 
a handsome engagement, should my first appearance 
equal his expectations, of which he did not appear to 
entertain any doubt. I need not say that this repetition 
of his offer had any other effect than of my imme- 
diately accepting of it ; and bidding my companions in 
obscurity adieu, I mounted the coach for London, 
bearing with me an exceedingly light purse — (with a 
rather .unusual companion) a still lighter heart. As 
the vehicle bowled along, I felt my blood dance in my 
veins, and the first prospect of the metropolis, which 
was shortly to be the " be-all and the end-all" of my 
hopes and fears, caused emotions as various as they are 
indescribable. 

Taking lodgings near the theatres, and as the other 
house opened a short time previous to the one at which 
I was to make my first essay, I became a constant 
auditor, for the purpose of avoiding any particular 
mannerism, or provincialism, I might have acquired in 
my previous erratic career. I found the theatrical 
public was in a tiptoe expectation, from the announce- 
ment of (c the first appearance of a gentleman in one 
of Shakspeare s most popular plays ;" and as the day — 
the ominous day — drew near, I felt suspended like thp 

d5 



58 MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 

coffin of the Moslem prophet,, between the heaven of 
hope and the earth of disappointment. 

At length the day, " big with the fate of" my fu- 
ture fame or obscurity, was ushered in by as villanous 
a fog as ever damped the energy of a child of fortune. 
I had been perfect in my part weeks before : there 
was not a point or a sentence but for which I had dif- 
ferent readings, and each seemed so appropriate that 
I knew not on which to decide. Scarce had the sun 
rose, red and heavily, when the clanking of pattens in 
the street, and the darkness of the air, assured me that 
the weather had in some degree contributed to my 
depression. Faint and feverish from the want of re- 
pose, for the little sleep I had obtained was so mingled 
with imaginary groans, hisses, and catcalls, that it 
rather distracted than soothed my mind. The first 
thing I did after dressing was to seize the play in 
which " all my hopes lay buried." I had mechani- 
cally placed it under my pillow the preceding evening. 
Never did the hours appear to fly so quick as on this 
eventful day. The rehearsal passed off like a matter 
of business. I could perceive from the intelligent 
glances which were ever and anon bestowed upon me, 
that I was the subject of the many whispering groups 



MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 59 

that were scattered on the stage. The evening drew on 
rapidly, and instead of endeavouring to collect my ideas 
for the trying scene in which I was about to take so 
conspicuous a part, I continued pacing the floor of my 
little sitting room, till I had worked myself into a fer- 
ment of conflicting feelings. The church clock at length 
chimed six, the hour at which I should have entered 
the theatre ; a condemned malefactor could not have 
listened with more mute horror to his death-knell than 
that which pervaded me at the moment. My high- 
flown expectations at once deserted me, and I would 
have given up the little I had " in possession or ex- 
pectancy" of the world's goods to have freed myself from 
the trial I was about to undergo. There was no time, 
however, for reflection, but throwing myself into a 
hackney-coach, which was waiting at the door, I ordered 
the driver to carry me to the theatre. Till now these 
gentlemen had invariably received my most hearty 
curses for their tediousness — this one appeared to have 
a spite against me for my unamiable opinion of his 
brotherhood, and drove rapidly up to the stage door. It 
seemed scarcely a moment since I quitted my own dark 
little chamber, before I found myself transported into 
a brilliantly lighted dressing room, which had been pre- 



60 MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE ^ 

pared expressly for my reception. Mirrors from the 
ceiling to the floor, perfumed wax emitting a brilliant 
and flattering light, represented a fairy scene to my 
bewildered eyes, while the half dozen attendants who 
were employed in decorating my person seemed like 
so many silent spirits to assist the delusion. When the 
operation of dressing was concluded, I entered the 
Green-room, and endeavoured to throw an air of care- 
lessness over my manners, which the most inex- 
perienced could have detected was assumed. 'Twas a 
vain attempt — I was the object of attention of every 
person present — every eye was directed to me. Equally 
vain were my endeavours to converse familiarly with 
my friends, they all seemed trying to give me encou- 
ragement, of which I must have palpably stood in 
need. The business of the stage commenced, performer 
after performer quitted the room — how I envied the 
perfect nonchalance with which they received the call, 
and how I trembled at the very expectation of hearing 
my own name uttered, which I knew a very few mi- 
nutes would accomplish. I repeated fifty times to my- 
self the first words. I impressed on my mind the 
peculiar emphasis and gesture I should make use cf^ 
till the call-boy gave me notice that " my moment was. 



MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 61 

come." I was conducted to the side scenes by my friends,, 
one of whom slapped me on the shoulder. I needed 
something to rouse me, every spark of self-possession 
had fled; suddenly making a desperate effort, I rushed 
forward, but instantly drew back, as if I was entering 
the portal of an enchanted palace ; e ' foolish/' exclaimed 
some voice, not " loud, but deep ;'/ it was my friend the 
manager, who immediately pushed me, as it were, on 
the stage. Before I was well aware of my situation, I 
was fairly in the front of the house, the solitary unit, 
for I know not how many thousand pairs of eyes to 
gaze at. What was my horror at that moment ! An 
audible buzz went through the house, and an awful 
stillness succeeded. Oh ! awful to me beyond lan- 
guage ! The glare of light prevented me from looking 
up : and when I did, I saw my brethren on the stage 
eying me with a most inquisitive vigilance ; how poor 
at that moment appeared to me the fame, the riches, of 
the world, in comparison with their self-possession and 
consummate coolness. A film seemed to float before my 
eyes — I felt as if I was reeling — an hysterical affection 
swelled my throat, not a word could I utter. My 
pitiable situation at once aroused the feelings of a 
genuine English audience — they saw the emotions under 



€2 MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 

which I was laboring — the stillness was broke, and an 
animating round of applause filled the house. In the 
midst of this tumult I felt the energy of my mind 
return. Lifting my eyes from the boards to which they 
had been till then rivetted, I looked around, and see- 
ing none but encouraging faces, the spirit of hope 
entered my veins — every faculty was sharpened — and 
when the applause had subsided, I delivered the few 
lines I had to repeat with as much effect as I did the 
day preceding before a looking glass. I was not long 
left in doubt of the nature of my reception. As the 
performance proceeded the house was occasionally 
shaken with acclamations. The stage, which seemed at 
first to me the field of alarm and dismay, now was the 
arena of triumph, and I trod it with the feelings of a 
victorious hero. My death-scene was the proudest 
hour of my life, for it was there that the general en- 
thusiasm discovered itself, and I was carried from the 
stage, thoroughly intoxicated with my complete suc- 
cess. Yet still the cup of my happiness was to be 
crowned with a more sparkling brim. After the play 
a general call resounded for my appearance. I entered 
again on the stage : but how different were my feel- 
ings. The audience rose; — the house reverberated with. 



MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 63 

applause — hats and handkerchiefs were waved, and my 
name sent up, as it were, by a thousand voices to the 
skies. The play was given out, and I rushed from the 
stage, revelling in all the delirium of a highly excited 
imagination. 

Years have rolled away, but the features of that 
eventful night are as vivid as ever in my memory. 
The same icy fears run through me, the same buoyant 
hopes excite me, and the same acclamations tingle on 
my heart at the retrospection. The fever of youth and 
fancy has fled, and age has chilled the warm current of 
my blood, but never till the latest hour of my life can 

I forget MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE I 



rL^TE 




THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 



The .two brazen heroes of St. Dunstan's were hammering 
the hour of eleven., one Easter Monday morning, as the 
sun, brilliantly peering through the dusky avenues of the 
Temple, beheld me most busily employed with my break- 
fast at my chambers in Brick Court, endeavouring in 
vain to get through the leading article of ( ' The Times/' 
and the second dilution of my chocolate. cc Grimalkin 
and Buller's Nisi Priiis" lay snug on the hearth-rug — 
an unfinished draft, with Chitty on Pleading, was open 
before me, more inviting than agreeable; my outer 
door was shut, and, being holiday time, I had given 
Peter leave to see his aunt at Bermondsey. So I de- 
termined upon excluding all morning calls, and to apply 
myself most soberly and industriously to business. 

Well, with this commendable resolution I took up 
the neglected draft — sighed over the many interline- 
ations — yawned thrice — and mended my pen ; and then 
most comfortably found out I was not in the humor 



66 THE TE3IPLAR'S STORY. 

to begin. Immediately as this unfortunate discovery 
was made, a loud rapping at the door, with sundry 
kicks and curses, proclaimed the near approach of my 
friend Volatile. " It 's no use/' exclaimed I, with some- 
thing between a sigh and a smile, <c business is over for 
the day/' and so saying, I unbarred my door, and in 
stepped my friend. 

Ned is one of those kind hearted beings, the very 
scarecrows of studious and well disposed young men 
(like me) — who will neither work themselves, nor let 

their friends work. " What — why— what the d 1 

ails you ? you look as yellow as if you had been at an 
alderman's feast, or a lecture on anatomy. Oh ! I see 
how it is — doors fast without ; caution in opening them 
within; shoulders sensitive of the tap; you not only 
follow the law, but I apprehend the law follows you. 
For shame, just upon twelve o'clock, with your morn- 
ing gown and slippers on. " I made my apology — 
much to do — had been a sad rake the previous week — 
and determined on that day to turn over a new leaf, 
and at once begin the work of reformation/' " Work ! 
Hear it, ye gods ! and ye Cheapside apprentices ! Was 
there ever such a thing heard of ? Work on an Easter 
Monday ! Why, man alive, there has not a mop been 






THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 67 

twirled — a statute been conned — a wig powdered — or a 

black letter dusted — 

1 For this is the day for fun and frivolity, 
Laughter, love, and jollity.' 

Work I am determined you sha'n't. You have often 
made me industrious against my will., and now for once 
I '11 make you idle against yours. For shame — look at 
the sun peeping over the sooty chimney pots, and 
through your dirty windows — to stay in doors on a day 
like this." " But, my dear Ned, where shall we go to, 
there's nothing but holiday apprentices and tailors' 
journeymen abroad. If we have a drive, we shall be 
blinded by the dust — it is too warm for a canter, and too 
cool for a sail — why I would as leave stay at home and 
play at scratch-cradle with my sister, card bobbin for 
my aunt, or read Tyrwhitt's Digest, or Bacon's Abridg- 
ment, from beginning to end." ce No, sir, all the world 
except you and I are at Greenwich, and there we shall 

go-" 

" Greenwich!" exclaimed I, with a legitimate shudder 
— " Greenwich on Easter Monday ! Why not say at 
once the Lord Mayor's ball, or a squeeze in the Opera 
gallery on a Catalani night. Shade of the departed 
Coke ! plead thy votary's cause." 



68 THE templar's story. 

But all this expostulation,, argumentation, and in- 
vocation, was of no avail ; Volatile knew too well how 
to bother a jury, rather than give up his point. So 
what with his raillery and logic on one side ; and lazi- 
ness, with her bland persuasion, on the other, I was 
nonsuited in one minute, and suited with holiday at- 
tire in the next, and with Ned, all joy, anticipation, 
and waggery, left my study ; not forgetting to leave a 
note for the laundress when she came, according to the 
established rule in those cases, to say I was gone to a 
consultation — nor to stick on the outer door, u return 
immediately/' 

" Why, confound it, Peregrine, your door that but a 
few minutes ago stood as upright a defence against the 
attacks of a bailiff, or dun, as the sentinel at the Horse 
Guards, now lies most deplorably/' 

" Never mind, it is not the tirst time it has saved its 
master's lips, and given yours an opportunity of pass- 
ing a rascally pun." 

So punning and talking, and quizzing, and laughing, 
we reached Billingsgate, <c Now what in the name of 
wonder," exclaimed I, " do you mean by bringing me 
here ? Are we to be joined by any ladies of your ac- 
quaintance?" Fishfags with baskets overflowing with 



THE TEMPLAR S STORY. b9 

soles and maids; watermen with boats sinking with bodies 
and no maids—" Boat, Gemmen — Boat, Gemmen," 
cried fifty voices at once, all anxious to secure a couple 
of such respectable passengers. " Just going off," cried 
an impudent son of the oar, with a striped cotton shirt 
and holiday corduroy breeches. " Two devilish fine 
girls already in, Gemmen," most suspiciously winking 
his eyes, as if he had discovered the frail sides of our 
composition ; such a temptation was irresistible, and in 
we got by the side of the damsels aforesaid, who, to do 
them justice, were not undeserving of the waterman's 
panegyric. 

Of one in particular I must make " honorable 
mention," as having a certain pair of dilated hazel eyes, 
which I shall dilate more upon hereafter. Ned, who 
possesses the admirable and useful art of making him- 
self at home in whatever company he mingles, did not 
find it a difficult matter to worm himself into the good 
graces of the prettiest of the girls, allowing me his full 
sanction to do the best I could with the other. I had 
already fallen into a brown study, when a slap on the 
shoulder reminded me I was not in Brick Court. " Now, 
for the sake of all that's agreeable, discard that length- 
ened visage. Why, could not you for once ' cut the 



70 THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 

shop ? You are like a Manchester rider, who always 
carries his patterns wherever he goes. Flesh and blood, 
Peregrine, how can you sit with your hands and knees 
up, as if you were receiving judgment, or about to be 
put in the stocks for a misdemeanor. One would think 
that the reflection of such a pair of eyes as those be- 
side you were a little better to muse on than a pro- 
blem of Euclid, or one of Mansfield's judgments, 
which I dare swear is the subject of your present pro- 
found cogitation." 

Our other companions were a rough hewn weather 
beaten Greenwich pensioner, and a thoroughbred cock- 
ney, in his Sunday's suit of dittos, whom I at once, from 
the interesting simplicity of his conversation, set down 
for no less a personage than the immortal Jemmy Green. 
Our discourse turned upon the abolition of fairs near 
the metropolis. The cockney very pathetically lamented 
the deal of wickedness that was always going on there, 
and was not at all sorry they were all to be put down. 
Greenwich, he was of opinion, would last for ever, and 
was licensed by Magnays Carter, a legislator whom I 
could not at that instant call to mind. These aristo- 
cratical opinions put the John Bull's blood of the ve- 
teran into a ferment, who was ready to take his oath 



THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 71 

<c the good old king" would not have let the statue 
pass — he was of opinion that the poor had a right to be 
happy as well as the rich. In this opinion I and Ned, 
although no radicals, most cordially coincided. "But 
hang it/' said the sailor, " while I eat his Majesty's 
bread, I should not grumble at his laws." The hazel 
eyes gave it as her opinion, that fairs were not of much 
mischief, and she thought that if they were over before 
it was dark there would be none at all. 

The cockney now became the butt of the company. 
After inquiring whether the water was salt at Green- 
wich, by a natural association of ideas he narrated, 
with a considerable pathos, the narrow escape he had 
in the Margate Hoy when she sprunk a leak, and how 
full the hole was of water, and many other particulars 
of the dangers he had undergone. Having expressed 
his determination not to visit the fair for the sake of 
avoiding the " orrid vimmen" that frequented it, he 
favored us with a pleasing detail of his bravery in 
rescuing his cousins when they ran too far in the sea 
on the Brighton coast. 

Just as he had related this last achievement, a 
clumsy, or else mischievous boy, who was rowing along 
a heavy ship's boat, managed to run foul of our wherry. 



72 THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 

The girls, anxious for the boat to go forward, although 
we had no sail, set up a squall, while the cockney, 
without a spark of that heroism which animated him 
on a former occasion, made an entrechat that would 
have done no discredit to Mr. Bologna or Madame 
Saqui ; and, as Lord Duberly would say, was " in 
the twinkling of a bed-post" in a barge some five or six 
feet distant. One would hardly have thought it pos- 
sible, interesting as his society had been, his sudden 
disappearance could have occasioned such great con- 
cern, so much so, that I can verily affirm all of us were 
near going after him ; for his absence created on 
one side of the boat such a great disproportion in re- 
gard to ballast, as to immerse the defective side pretty 
tolerably in the water. However, by the dexterous and 
timely movements of Ned and the waterman, we were 
soon restored to our equilibrium, I being at the mo- 
ment engaged with the hazel-eyed beauty, who had 
managed to faint most appropriately in my arms. Mr. 
Jemmy Green having discovered that all was safe, con- 
descended to occupy the seat he had so unceremoniously 
abdicated, receiving from all present the most flattering 
congratulations on his amazing dexterity, admirable 
courage, presence of mind, and above all for his bene- 



THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 73 

volence of feeling, which induced him to hazard the 
lives of six of his fellow creatures for the sake of 
saving his own precious person a wetting. The poor 
animal bore his blushing honors thick upon him, 
and began, I think, to wish we were all at the bottom, 
or he any where else than where he was ; the girls 
were most unmercifully severe, one asked him whe- 
ther he had taken lessons from Signor Antonio, the 
rope dancer, the other thought it was distressing to see 
people laboring under such exquisite sensibility, and 
thanked him most cordially in the name of her sex for 
the gallantry he had evinced in making his glorious exit. 
The waterman and the veteran gave him some pretty 
hard rubs, while Ned and myself found our satire 
would be thrown away on such an apology for a man. 
' ' Poor devil," whispered Ned to the maiden at his side, 
<( he looks as if he had escaped from one calamitous 
death to meet with another more severe ; 'tis really 
too bad of you — no sooner has he escaped from drown- 
ing, but you must begin to roast him alive." 

This " romantic incident" occupied our thoughts and 
conversation until we arrived at Greenwich, when the 
ladies not finding their brothers where they did not 
expect to meet them, consented to employ the idle 

E 



74 THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 

arms of Ned and your humble servant, and in this 
manner we sallied to the fair. And here a scene awaited 
our wondering eyes, that fully repaid us for the distance 
and dangers we had encountered and undergone. To 
one like myself, only accustomed to gloom and mono- 
tony, or the dull propriety of fashionable amusements, 
it was doubly gratifying. Look where you would, there 
was nothing to be seen but joyous faces; youths with 
their lasses bounded by us with buoyant steps and 
merry eyes, and all near and afar off seemed to be 
divided into two classes, and actuated by a double prin- 
ciple — to be happy, and to make happy — the one to 
empty their purses, the other to nil theirs. The spirit 
of joy soon entered my veins — and for what ? I could 
see nothing there that could gratify a taste accustomed 
to enjoyments more intellectual and refined. What 
were to me all Mr. GyngelFs conjurations, or the 
bewitching grimaces of Mr. Richardson's fool, which 
formed the centre of attraction for all the gaping bump- 
kins and adventurous citizens in the fair. Alas! Mr. 
Paap, little as he was, had for me not the smallest 
charms; nor did the Swiss Giantess, like the immortal 
Portia," towering above her sex/' although, undoubtedly, 
in herself a very great curiosity, excite in me the least. 



THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 7^ 

No— the freshness of my heart's young spring had 
long since been withered up in the pursuit of harsh and 
abstract studies. Its energies had been cramped from 
the effect of inspiration — not at the fountain of Hip- 
pocrene, but by one far less romantic, though not less 
dear — the venerable spout of Garden Court, Inner 
Temple ; I could therefore only account for my hilarity 
by supposing that happiness, like misery, is infectious. 
Having seen all that was to be seen, we went to the 
park, where new pleasures awaited us. "Let them 
talk as they will of the cockneys/' cried Ned with 
enthusiasm, "if they admire Greenwich Park, they 
have no need to read Burke on the Sublime and Beau- 
tiful." It was indeed delightful, the sky was cloudless, 
and for the season of the year, unusually brilliant, as if a 
higher Power loved to contribute towards the happiness 
of his children. The sun seemed on this occasion to put 
forth his most gladdening aspect, spreading light and life 
on a scene, which, without his beam, would be darkness 
and sorrow ; in short, not to be too sentimental, nature, 
as if to be in keeping with the scene, had dressed her- 
self in her holiday apparel, and I thought I had never 
seen her look more lovely. 

It was here that England's Maiden Queen coquetted 

e 2 



76 THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 

with those gallants of old,, the Sydney s and Raleighs— 
it was here that the chevalier performed that master- 
stroke of gallantry, of making his velvet cloak a clean 
passage for the feet of his royal mistress, and also a 
path towards his own fortune. Could I retread the 
spot without a glow of that chivalrous feeling which 
warmed his breast, and wishing myself another Ra- 
leigh with an Elizabeth at my side, for whose royal 
feet I might perform a similar service. In short, from 
a dull calculating being, I became just as buoyant and 
light-hearted a sprite as ever Easter sun shone upon. 

The galaxy of attraction seemed to be the foot of a 
hill, which many gay youths and maidens attempted in 
vain to ascend, invariably rolling down again as soon 
as they had reached half way, reminding me of the 
too frequent fate of those youthful aspirants who en- 
deavour to climb a certain other hill, more inviting, 
and seemingly less inaccessible, and which hill, gentle 
reader, if you have not yet found it out, is Parnassus. 

Among the feminine part of the assembly, there 
seemed an amiable rivalry who could display the pret- 
tiest ankle; and, ah! if they did not blush, I am sure I 
did for them, for I thought it was also a contest 
among them to show whose swain had presented her 



THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 77 

with the smartest garters. The hazel eyes seemed 
quite shocked at the want of decorum some of her sex 
displayed, and to save her blushes, and my eyes, we 
hastened from the unhallowed spot. When we had 
reached the top of the hill, the view amply repaid me 
for all the enticements we had resigned in its favour. 
The Surrey hills in the rear clothed with verdure, 
looked with a kind of motherly air on the country 
around us. At our feet ran old Father Thames, bear- 
ing many a noble vessel on his broad bosom. To the 
left, where St. Paul's, in all its glory, divided the ob- 
scure clouds, peering boldly above the pigmy steeples 
around it, was London. And thou ! great source of 
wealth, honour, infamy, and crime ! I had already ut- 
tered, when a smart push in my back put an end to 
this promising soliloquy, to my indescribable terror, 
and doubtless to the reader's satisfaction. I was off my 
legs in an instant, and experienced one of the most de- 
lightful tumbles it was ever the fate of man to endure. 
Down I rolled through bramble and brier to the un- 
speakable damage of my nankeens, and at last fell, not 
only against my inclination, but also against a regi- 
ment of ginger beer bottles, which, as if to welcome 
my arrival, spurted forth their contents most properly 



78 THE TEMPLAfc's STORY. 

over my unfortunate person. As soon as I could open 
my eyes, I was forced from modesty's sake to close 
them, for what should I see but my luckless com- 
panion — the hazel eyes — following my example with 
the utmost celerity. A gentle breeze, as if to acce- 
lerate her progress, had sprung up, and her frock, or 
some other part of her dress, the name of which I for- 
get, formed a sail, which was soon extended in the air, 
and displayed — Oh ! I shall never forget — one of the 
prettiest formed ankles on which I ever gazed or made 
verses. On looking up for the cause of this pleasantry, 
half a dozen merry girls, who seemed to make light of 
my misfortune, convinced me that Greenwich Park, on 
a fair day, was not a fit place for making soliloquies. 

The day was now fast wearing away, and a sombre 
twilight gleamed through the avenues formed by the 
trees, when our fair companions, who had not yet 
found their brothers, thought it time to leave the joyous 
scene. Accordingly, being foiled in our desire of ob- 
taining any other conveyance, the young ladies con- 
sented to wave their scruples, and venture once more 
in the same conveyance that brought us there. The 
last one was just putting off, with a complement of 
seven lively souls, and what is more, as many sub- 



THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 79 

stantial bodies already seated. Having no other 
choice, regardless of the risk we were running, we 
consented to make up the eleven. Already within an 
inch or two of the water, our friend, the boatman, dis- 
covered we wanted another to balance the vessel. A 
ponderous citizen, and his no less respectable wife, 
who, judging from the alteration they made in the 
boat, I should have imagined were of much weight in 
the City, as undoubtedly they were every where else, 
consented to make up the deficiency. Without more 
delay, we set forward, and although some of the ladies 
were perpetually assuring us the boat was upsetting, 
we reached nearly half way without any accident 
occurring, when I verily believe, as a matter of pique, 
that they should not be again disappointed, our pi- 
lots managed to come in contact with a vessel, the 
darkness of the night preventing our seeing her, she 
having no lights. A general scream, which was the first 
intimation I received, followed a volley of oaths, and 
i( Keep your seats" from the watermen. Disregarding 
this friendly advice, all simultaneously rose, and a cold 
bath, more refreshing than agreeable, immediately made 
known to us the consequence. I must confess at the 
moment I thought it was all over with us, though, 



80 THE TEMPLAR'S STORY, 

had it been unattended with danger, I am sure the 
scene would have excited the risible faculties of one 
far more stoical than myself. The citizen was floun- 
dering about half in and half out of the water, like a 
huge turtle in an ocean of gravy, while his cara sposa 
had, as the only thing she could cling to, got fast hold 
of his pigtail. At the moment, I do most conscien- 
tiously affirm, he thought she was the evil one, and 
that for once the devil had got his due. " Spare me — 
O ! spare me V 9 he ejaculated most fervently. One of 
the watermen, in endeavouring to succour a child, had 
each of his legs seized on by different girls, while the 
rest of the passengers were employed in screaming, 
praying, swearing, and fainting, creating such a va- 
riety of sounds, as to defy Babel itself for discord. By 
this time a number of boats had come to our assist- 
ance, and upon a general muster (God be praised) we 
found " that all was right/' Most of us were pretty 
well frightened and soaked ; with this exception, and 
the loss of a few fairings, wigs, and handkerchiefs, no 
other damage had ensued. The whole party, like a 
troop of Naiads, dripping in all directions, made the 
best of their way to a public-house, where a good fire, 
and change of linen, plenty of jokes> and a quantum 






THE TEMPLAR'S STORY. 81 

suff. of brandy., put us in rather better humor than 
might have been expected after this disaster. Many, 
indeed, seemed quite delighted in having the ride (and 
the bath) for nothing, as the waterman had most mi- 
raculously disappeared as soon as the other boats had 
offered their assistance. Ned and myself were fortu- 
nate enough in procuring a chaise, in which we con- 
veyed our fair charges to the doors of their respective 
mammas, and then made the best of our way towards 
the Temple, within whose hallowed walls we arrived 
safe, just as the watchman had ushered in Tuesday 
morning. 

The water had cooled Ned's courage most com- 
pletely 3 not a pun could I get from him all the way 
home, nor, in fact, any thing else but a twenty times' 
repeated determination not to trust his precious person 
again in a wherry along with a drunken waterman, 
nine full grown people, and five children. 



E 5 



THE WANDERING JEW. 



" My punishment is greater than I can bear: — Behold thou 
hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from 
thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond 
on the earth." — Genesis. 



THE WANDERING JEW, 



V 



Hundreds of times lias the earth been emptied of 
her people — hundreds of times has it been filled and 
emptied again — thousands of times has nature changed 
her countenance, have her fields been exhausted and 
regenerated, and the children of her soil bloomed, 
fructified, and dropped from the tree of life — and yet I 
remain undecaying and imperishable. O ! grave, where 
is thy victory? O ! death, where is thy sting ? Over me 
ye have none — the curse of God lies withering on my 
brow, and yet consumes me not. I have seen my 
children and my children's children, generations upon 
generations of my own blood, come into life, spin 
through the measure of their years, and at last moulder 
in the dust. I remain as a pyramid in the desert, 
over which time has no power, and the breath of the 
whirlwind passes heedlessly away — yet even that I 
am doomed to outlive. The past, the present, and the 
future^ with me have no distinction — all are blended 



86 THE WANDERING JEW. 

in one — the strides of ages bring me not nearer eter- 
nity — in a circle of misery I pace the wretched path of 
my existence, ever ending where I began. Cities 
crumble to dust, nations die away, and are forgotten- 
empires pass away like meteors — and yet I exist with- 
out change. With me, nature has no connecting link. 
I am a thing set apart from the world, and yet doomed 
to dwell within it, with all the vain wishes and un- 
controllable desires of mortality — with all the misery 
of humanity, I am neither mortal nor human. Oh ! 
ye Heavens, whose breath fells the forest — the light of 
whose eyes levels the monuments of ages with the 
dust — why am I exempt from your wrath ? In vain 
do I court the forked lightning as it wings its rapid 
flight through the air. In vain do I mock the thunder ; 
it growls not for me — it will not crush me. All life 
has an end — the plants of the fields return to their 
creating dust, the flowers perish, the rivers dry up — 
even the very worms die — but I live. Yea, have I not 
lived to see all that is dear to me drop away one by 
one, and at last leave me childless, friendless, and 
loveless — the curse of God written on my forehead — a 
wanderer on the face of the earth. Oh ! earth, hide me 
— Oh ! hell, open wide your gates to receive me. 



THE WANDERING JEW. 87 

A. M. 4480. 

Rome is fallen !— the grass grows over the mistress of 
the world ! — the temple of God is shattered ! — and the 
beasts of the field, the toad, and the things obscene 
are crawling over its columns. The wind murmurs 
its hollow notes among the ruins, as, through the dark 
branches of the cypress, I catch the dying evidence of 
all that was once noble in nature and art — I revel on 
the scene before me, and roam like a ghost through 
the scenes of by-gone splendor. The halls of the 
mighty are the homes of the croaking ravens — the bats 
flit through the vistas of palaces — and the snail leaves 
its odious slime in the bower of beauty. The owl 
screeches in the banquet-room, which once resounded 
with the music of home returned warriors. All nature 
is rapidly returning to itself, and leaves me as before. 
Is there no earthquake to swallow me — no thunderbolt 
to crush me— no meteoric flash that will blast me and 
my name from earth for ever ? 

Egypt, A. M. 4961. 
On this day I enter into my thousandth year. The 
links of my destiny are like the sands on the sea-shore, 
as countless and as inseparable. With me, the roll of a 



88 THE WANDERING JEW. 

century is what the turn of an hour glass is to others, 
and yet each moment lingers as slowly. On this 
frowning promontory will I gaze on the world at my 
feet — that world of which I am the only thing that will 
exist as long as itself. Even thou, great ocean, which 
I now barely discover at the verge of the horizon, five 
hundred years hence rolled at my feet on the spot 
where I am now sitting ; thou A even thou, retreatest 
with the footsteps of Time — over me, his scythe can 
plough no furrow. What, not one indication of age 
have a thousand years of toil, wretchedness, and tor- 
ture brought. In the bloom of manhood I remain, 
with the canker of despair ever gnawing on my vitals. 
My soul is as a sepulchre in which all corrupteth, but 
itself remaineth whole. 

A. M. 5083. 

Joy ! joy ! Vesuvius is in a roar already — I hear the 
hoarse croakings of the wind — already I draw in the 
close pestilential air — already my ears drink the growl- 
ing of the coming thunder. The head of the volcano is 
lost in the black clouds that surround it, which will 
break only to discover the horrors they are concealing. 
AH nature seems choaked — her operations are sus- 



THE WANDERING JEW. 89 

pended — the vegetation is withered and drooping — the 
leaves fall off in showers from the trees — the birds drop 
from their perches— the cattle lie panting in the 
scorched fields — the peasantry fly in wild affright from 
their homes, without daring to look behind them — mo- 
thers forsake their babes — and lovers trample over the 
bodies of their betrothed. I alone stand unmoved, 
and with a savage glee behold the desolation around 
me, and wait the approaching triumph. The thunder 
ceases — the lightning no longer flashes — the air 
becomes closer and hotter — the course of nature is 
stagnated — what means this fearful pause ? The 
truth breaks in upon me — the volcano roars — the 
clouds around it disperse in wild disorder — showers of 
electric sparks light the earth to witness the deadly 
horrors — huge masses of burning rocks, torrents of 
stones rush from the crater, and make the air reverbe- 
rate with their collision. As far as the eye can reach 
all is of a bloody dye — louder becomes the thunder — the 
air is filled with the crater's furious discharges — and yet 
something more dreadful seems approaching. The 
broad glare of the flames, to which the meridian splen- 
dor of the day is as midnight, the shrieks of the living, 
and the howls of the dying, tell that the climax of hor- 
rors has arrived. The lava bursts forth in a mighty 



90 THE WANDERING JEW. 

stream, carrying before it trees, beasts, men, villages, 
towns, nay, even mountains in its course. How the 
fools fly from it. Ah ! happy beings to dread death. 
Oh ! ecstatic thought — Oh ! luxury never to be tasted 
by me — I will plunge into the stream — I will bathe in 
the fiery flood that cannot disgorge me. It does, and 
again I am baffled — unscathed — uninjured. Slippery 
as thou art with the gore of the slain, I will climb thee, 
Vesuvius. Already I am on thy sides — already the 
scorching heat of the furnace blisters my skin — my eyes 
seem starting from their sockets — the crater, crowned 
with blue and sulphureous flames, is vomiting its 
wrath on my head. I am on the brink — the abyss 
yawns to receive me — I gaze in vain down its burning 
depths — 'tis bottomless — I am on its brim — say, death ! 
wilt thou now refuse to receive me ? I rise with open 
arms to embrace thee — I cling towards thee — one mo- 
ment more I am in thy blasting regions. From crag 
to crag of burning marl I am tossed — now thrown up 
with the scalding lava — now striking against the flinty 
sides of the volcano, the fire entering into my veins, 
and yet all the energies of my mind in full play. 
Not even the consuming floods of Vesuvius can touch 

the curse that binds me to existence. 

***** 



THE WANDERING JEW. 91 

Herculaneum, A. M. 5136. 
For fifty years have I been incarcerated within the 
slumbering ashes of Vesuvius, till, cast up with its lava, 
I find myself seated over the remains of a once glorious 
city. Here, where an empire flourished, the rank 
weed presumptuously waves its head, and the loath- 
some toad croaks where beauty once lent her voice to 
the breeze — I alone am here to remember its faded 
splendor. Oh ! thou savage flood, why didst thou not 
annihilate me with the ruins ? Thou overthrewest the 
proudest city on earth to perpetuate an atom. I look 
around me, and behold the vast limits of the hemis- 
phere, yet even they come not up to the uncontrollable 
boundaries of my thoughts. Throughout the illimit- 
able globe, of which there is not a speck but what is 
productive — there is nothing that can claim affinity 
to me. 

London, A. M. 5669. 
Five hundred years have elapsed since I was last in 
England, when, under the Roman yoke, I remember 
it bare and desolate — its inhabitants wild and unculti- 
vated, and but a few removes from savages — now what 
do I behold it ? — the mistress of the world ! Its people 



92 THE WANDERING JEW. 

just recovered from the effects of a revolution,, are en- 
joying the serenity of peace, their hearts brimming 
with loyalty and affection towards a beloved and ac- 
complished monarch — its court filled with beauties that 
might contend with the collected triumphs of the 
world — with sages, warriors, wits, poets, and philoso- 
phers — what a cycle of glory ! But yesterday the an- 
niversary of his Majesty's Restoration was celebrated. 
The bells filled the air with their merry notes — old and 
young perambulated the streets in their gayest attire — 
the public walks were filled with the most brilliant 
company — music of the most joyous description lent its 
delicious powers to the general harmony ;— one general 
feeling seemed to rule the hearts of all — to be happy, and 
make happy. 

But now, even now, when scarce four- and- twenty 
hours have elapsed, what an awful change has already 
taken place. The promenades are deserted, the shops 
are not decorated, and the revelries are abandoned. 
The streets are filled with whispering groups, who seem 
drawn towards each other by some irresistible impulse, 
and yet shudder at the contact ; each face is overspread 
with gloom — every eye rolls with suspicion and dread. 
Strange enigma ! The secret is at last unfolded — a 



THE WANDERING JEW. 93 

vague rumor is abroad that the plague has made its ap- 
pearance. How every nerve seems- shaken— how every 
pore seems opened with the dreadful intelligence — 
doubt, fear, and mystery are the prevailing character- 
istics of every face. 

The report has been authenticated. London is one 
vast scene of hideous alarm — the inhabitants fly about 
in wild dismay — and the dreadful thought, that each has 
not more than twenty-four hours to live, seems to be 
written on their countenances. No longer do the trou- 
bled fly into the bosoms of their friends for relief, their 
misery must be solitary — they must avoid their fellow 
creatures as they would a pestilence. Every man has 
become hateful to himself, and hateful to his brethren — 
children recoil at the touch of their parents — and mo- 
thers refuse suck to their babes, lest, instead of yielding 
nourishment, they should be administering poison. 

Forty-eight hours have elapsed since the first symp- 
toms of the plague appeared, and already seven hun- 
dred human beings, who were then enjoying the re- 
velry of the jubilee, are numbered with the dead. Feel- 
ings seem annihilated — passions are suspended — men 
no longer love, envy, or fear each other. Death — Death 
alone stalks through the streets regarded. The roads 



94 THE WANDERING JEW. 

are choked up with, conveyances of every description, 
filled with individuals, who are leaving the homes of 
their infancy with feelings of the most hateful abhor- 
rence. Property is abandoned — treasures are forsaken — 
all nature is returning to herself. Orders are issued 
that the dead are to be buried within one hour after 
their decease, and the red cross* appears in every street; 
physicians fear to encounter their patients — the courts 
of justice are abandoned — the public places of amuse- 
ment are closed — all communication ceases between man 
and man. All efforts to stop the progress of the monster 
are fruitless — he rages with greater violence— the red 
cross is at almost every house, and the dead are hourly 
carried off in cartloads. As soon as the first symptom 
has shown itself, the victim is abandoned, and per- 
mitted to brave through the agony of his few wretched 
hours alone, without a friendly hand to close his dying 
eyes — without the satisfaction of knowing that a tear 
will be shed, when his sufferings will be ended — but 
with the dreadful assurance that, as soon as they are, or 
even perhaps before the last spark of life is extinct, he 
will be heaped with a score of others, and thrown head- 

* The red cross was the signal that marked an infectious ha- 
bitation. 



THE WANDERING JEW. 95 

long into a pit, without the common ritual of the dead 
being repeated over his remains ; for, the infection still 
remaining with the corpse, no clergyman is to be found 
who will venture to perform the last offices of hu- 
manity. 

Every churchyard is filled ; large pits are dug at dif- 
ferent distances from the metropolis, where the bodies 
of the deceased are thrown. The largest sums are 
offered to those who are willing to perform the office of 
burial, but even the very beggars shun the proffered 
gold ; trade, agriculture, and life itself, all seem at a 
stand still. The appearance of London is that of a city 
that has been ransacked, and its inhabitants destroyed. 
Immediately that a house is infected, the furniture is 
taken and piled in a large heap, and set fire to in the 
street ; some part escapes the conflagration, and adds to 
the general desolation of the scene. Every shop is 
closed — -grass covers the pavement of the greatest 
thoroughfares — the sound of a footstep is heard at a con- 
siderable distance — I — I alone wander about the streets 
unmolested — through the dark rooms, and pestilential 
air of the sick — amidst the howls of the dying—- courting 
the arrow of death, which strikes every heart but that 
which opens itself to it. How often have I mingled 



96 THE WANDERING JEW. 

myself in the direst scenes of corruption — how often 
have I watched the robber fell his victims one after 
the other, yet leave me untouched and uninjured. 



A. M. 5771. 

Another hundred years have flown — I am still exist- 
ing — new ages of misery are forming for me. Oh J man, 
who repinest at the sorrows of one life, think ye of 
mine, which comprehends those of a thousand ; every 
sorrow, vexation, mortification, and misery, of near 
eighteen hundred years are still fresh in my memory, 
as in the moment in which they occurred. But they, 
even with all their horrors, are not equal to the clouds 
that hang over my destiny. New torments, fresh mise- 
ries, are in store for me, and even when thou, who now 
readest the tale of my horrors, with thy children's chil- 
dren, shalt be gathered with the dust, I shall be but 
commencing another era of wretchedness. Thrice have 
I ascended thrones as a monarch — innumerable times 
have I led armies to the field of battle, with no other 
hope or ambition than that some friendly sword would 
bring the gift of death along with it — thrice have I been 
brought to the scaffold as a common criminal — thrice 



THE WANDERING JEW. 97 

have I rushed into the abyss of an earthquake — times 
innumerable have I thrown myself on the vengeance of 
the ocean. Each and every time have I been defeated. 
At this moment I am pining over my miseries — will they 
never cease ! May I never hope for death ! No: life 
holds me in eternal bondage, and hell itself has no 
corner for me I 



THE RAPTURE OF BENEFICENCE. 

A FRAGMENT. 



Joy, joy for the blessings that fate hath given 
This meritless hand of mine to bestow ! 

Have I footed the amaranth meads of Heaven, 
That flowers are springing wherever I go ? 

A queen rushed out of her castle walls ; 

Her step was hurried/ her look was wild ; 
For the flames were over her stately halls, 

And there stood at a casement her only child. 

" I '11 give to the man who will save him now, 
The costliest treasure my realm has in store !" 

I saw the fair boy with his fearless brow, 

And I reached in a moment the chamber door. 

The air was black, but I thought it sweet, 

For I knew the young cherub was breathing it too ; 

I laid the babe at its mother's feet, 
I beheld her clasp it, and off I flew. 

p2 



100 



THE RAPTURE OP BENEFICENCE. 



She proffer'd both riches and honors great, 
For him who had acted that perilous part ; 

But the boon, though noble, was offered too late — 
I had carried a richer one home in my heart. 

A captive pined in a sickly gleam, 

That showed him the toads of his dungeon floor ; 
I bade him go bask in the day's broad beam, 

And enter his darkling cell no more. 

But I follow'd him softly out, to spy 

How the joy- drops down his cheek would rain, 

And to watch as he dotingly gazed on high, 
Heaven's blue coming into his eyes again. 



I saw it, I saw it, and saw as well, 

A wife on his neck, and a child on his knee, 

And I thought, even then, 'twould be hard to tell 
Which was the happier — I or he. 






TZJ.TE IT. 




THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION OF A 
GOOD APPETITE.* 



The world has always appeared to me exceedingly 
partial in its choice of subjects for the exercise of its 
sympathy. While the sorrows of a Byron draw rivers 
of tears, sufficient to wash half the handkerchiefs of the 
nation, the woes of a respectable individual like myself 
are contemplated dry-eyed, and suffered to pass without 
remark, like a lot of sundries in the general catalogue 
of human calamities. And yet, sir, what are the af- 
flictions which threw their shade over the destiny of 
Harold, in comparison to those which hourly wound 
my sensitive spirit ? His was the aching void of a 
satiated soul — mine, the aching void of an empty 
stomach. 



* The above affecting narrative was fcund amongst the papers 
of my late respected friend, Mr. Ezekiel ; a gentleman who died in 
consequence of alarm, occasioned by a report that butchers' meat 
would rise to a shilling a pound. The shock was so great to his 
sensitive feelings, that he immediately took to his bed, from whence 
(melancholy to relate) he never, as the newspapers say, " rose again." 



102 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION 

While I was still u in arms/' I performed such prodi- 
gies of valour, that, " in spite of my teeth," which had 
not yet lent their friendly assistance, I had fairly sucked 
dry six wet-nurses. The cutting of my first tooth was 
an omen of direful import, unfortunately fulfilled, ere 
the first twelvemonth was over, by the melancholy as- 
pect of the butcher's account. 

I appeared to possess from my cradle an instinctive 
talent in distinguishing the different kinds of food, but, 
as the " march of my intellect" in other accomplishments 
was by no means correspondingly progressive, in my 
sixth year I was sent to school, to the great grief of the 
poulterers, butchers, bakers, and green-grocers of our 
neighbourhood, and the serious benefit of the family 
pantry. On this melancholy crisis, I endured all the 
feelings natural to a first separation from the home of 
one's infancy. The leaving of my parents was a trial 
to my young heart; but the parting with the cook was 
pathetic indeed. Yet, with the eager thirst for novelty, 
all thoughts of home vanished with the smoke of the 
kitchen chimney ; and, after a two-hours' ride, I found 
myself arrived at my future destination — " Skinflint's 
Preparatory School." 

Alas ! when I mention that name, what a series of 



OP A GOOD APPETITE. 103 

mournful associations come flocking with it. Breakfasts 
u slubbered over in haste;" and, not with that decent 
regard to time and material, which was so punctiliously 
observed in the house of my respected parents. Break- 
fasts did I say ? — those villanous partnerships between 
hard-hearted bread and butter, and melancholy '/ sky- 
blue/' — Dinners — " curtailed of their fair proportions" 
— the endless legs of mutton, and unskinned potatoes, 
which provoked, and not satisfied, the appetite. — And 
suppers, which only caused me to count the minutes 
which would elapse ere the breakfast hour came round 
again. I feel I am growing eloquent; but this is a 
subject I dare not trust myself with, particularly as I 
have not dined — the remembrance of past injuries, 
though forgiven, cannot always sleep in oblivion ; their 
ghosts will occasionally arise. Days of my childhood ! 
I cannot regret that you are flown, if I entertain that 
decent regard for my stomach, which I esteem to be 
the characteristic sentiment of the civilized man. 

With the privilege of a biographer, I will skip an- 
other half dozen years of my life, when I was removed 
to a school for " children of a larger growth." Here the 
aspect of my fortunes, which had been always of a sor- 
rowful complexion, took a deeper tinge. My appetite ! 



104 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION 

my unfortunate appetite ! was again the cause of my 
misfortunes. It became the subject of innumerable 
letters of complaint, both from master and pupil, to my 
parents. I complained of a plot being concerted to 
starve me; and my preceptor accused my venerated 
father of sending me there to breed a famine in the 
neighbourhood. An additional premium, with the 
mutual understanding of two extra meals per diem, 
settled the difference ; and I was permitted to resume 
my studies, and to send up my plate even after the 
awful inuendo of cc Master EzekieFs fourth serving." 
I had already become bilious and melancholy, for, won- 
derful to relate, the whole of my exploits with the knife 
and fork had only served to decrease, rather than to add 
to, the amplitude of my figure. At fourteen, I was 
long, lean, and cadaverous, and to those who had never 
seen me dine, of a pulmonary appearance ; those, who 
had candidly acknowledged that if there was a con- 
sumption visible, it was in the dinner, and not in the 
diner. Even at this early age I was distinguished by 
a gravity of manner, remarkable in one of such tender 
years ; indeed, no wonder, for sorrow had already com- 
menced its work with me. My notorious predilection 
had rendered me a sort of terror among my young com- 



OP A GOOD APPETITE. 105 

panions, by whom I was generally known as the " de- 
vouring element." It was no uncommon thing for me 
to purchase the fee-simple of the breakfasts of four of 
my schoolmates, besides a reversionary interest in each 
of their dinners, until my resources, liberal as my 
supply of pocket-money was, became exhausted in 
feeding that which was inexhaustible. 

A favorite theory of mine is, that it is impossible to 
feel affection for any object, without a wish of possession 
and exclusive enjoyment. Consequently, my enthusi- 
astic love for the good things of this life, had rendered 
me rather selfish in the disposal of them, and drew upon 
me the unconcealed aversion of my unthinking com- 
panions. I had but one friend, Ichabod Atkinson, and 
towards this interesting individual I felt all the affection 
of a brother. A similarity of tastes, dispositions, and 
pursuits, drew us together, and that indescribable sym-« 
pathy, which links man with his fellow, upon the dis- 
covery of a mutual resemblance, kept us firmly united. 
He was, like myself, an eater of the first eminence, 
and had prevailed on his family to finish his education 
at my school, where he had heard there was actually 
a greater appetite existing than his own. Happy days, 
oh ! Ichabod; were those shared with thee* Ours was 

f5 



106 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION 

the springtime of life, with no clouds to obscure its 
serenity— except our appetites. Our confidence in each 
other was unbounded; we read, talked, bathed, and 
walked together; every thing we possessed was in 
common — except our victuals; upon that point we 
knew too well the delicacy of each other's feelings. 
Seldom has it been my lot to view a dawn so full of 
hope and promise as that of my earliest friend — he 
could devour five meals a-day without apprehension of 
the consequence, but, alas! he added one more to the 
list of premature and unfortunate talent; he fell a 
victim to his unfortunate predilection at the interesting 
age of three- and- twenty, in consequence of over- feeding 
at a " green-goose dinner" on an Easter Monday, at one 
of the company's halls. 

Having finished my education, I had the misfortune 
of falling very seriously in love. My feelings, alwa)'s 
tremblingly alive to every attack, became the victim of 
a tenderer passion than they had yet experienced. The 
object of my regard was young, beautiful, and rich. 
We had met at a dinner-party, and very naturally 
fallen in love. Dinner ! talismanic word ; what a 
throng of associations does it carry with it ; the most 
important acts of life are negociated through its medium. 



OP A GOOD APPETITE. 107 

A dinner is given on the birth of the heir ; the con- 
summation of a dinner is as necessary at your wedding 
as that of any other of its solemnities ; and a dinner is 
the most affectionate record that attends your funeral 
obsequies. It is the universal medium. No one, then, 
entertaining as I do so solemn a veneration for this 
most praiseworthy ceremony, but who would feel his 
sensibility awakened, upon finding himself seated, after 
partaking of a magnificent repast, by the side of a 
beautiful female. My heart at once acknowledged its 
proximity to the stomach, and in a strain, fitting the 
eventful moment, I poured forth my soul. It had 
always been my practice, when I intended dining out, 
in order to reduce my appetite into something less than 
a wonder, to take my usual dinner previously. With 
the assistance of a little self-denial, I fortunately ac- 
quitted myself in so unostentatious a manner, as really 
to make my friend, at the head of the table, feelingly 
express his concern at the very bad dinner I had made 
(I really had not consumed above three pounds solid). 
This was not lost to the ear of the sentimental Amelia, 
and ere the evening was over, I found that my pre- 
caution and abstinence had most remarkabfy Mac- 
adamized the road to her affections. To be brief with 



108 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION 

a melancholy tale, the next morning found my horse's 
head in the way to her paternal mansion, which she 
occupied in her own right. It was a fine March 
morning, with a fresh stirring wind — ah ! that fatal 
wind, what an appetite it gave me ! My ride was about 
seven or eight miles, and although, with the full know- 
ledge of my unfortunate drawback, I had breakfasted, 
luncheoned, and dined, before I left home, I felt all 
the slumbering functions of my stomach awaken like 
" giants refreshed" with the appetite-provoking breezes. 
Unluckily, there was no inn, nor " friendly hall," in my 
way, where I could stop to recruit. Arrived at last, 
the reception which the lovely girl gave me fully com- 
pensated me for all the trying difficulties of my journey. 
Alas ! that so charming a dream should ever be dis- 
solved by so unpoetical a reality as my appetite. It 
had been intimated by a friend, who took a considerable 
interest in my welfare, and who was well aware that 
my talents in the masticatory art were by no means 
contemptible, that although the fortune of my Amelia 
was very extensive, yet that her domestic establishment 
was governed by a maiden aunt with the most rigid 
economy. I therefore determined to crush the evil 
demon that was gnawing within me, and endure the 



OF A GOOD APPETITE. 109 

martyrdom of a ride home to dinner, rather than satisfy 
its craving demands at so dear a price. Ah ! hapless 
Ezekiel, hadst thou but persisted in thy determination, 
Scrape-all Park would have been thine, together with 
its herds of deer, its preserves, warrens, fisheries, and 
the beautiful Amelia. But a cloud hung over my des- 
tiny, and I fell a victim on this inauspicious occasion. 

Overcome by the flattering attention of both aunt 
and niece, I yielded to the tempting offer of a luncheon 
(the ladies were too fashionable to call it by any other 
name, although I afterwards discovered it was their re- 
gular hour of dining). A pair of white boiled fowls 
first made their appearance, supported by a tongue — 
awful moment ! twenty thousand pounds depended on 
three parts of the dishes remaining untouched. I re- 
solved not to look at them, for I felt the ruling principle 
demonstrating its most unequivocal presence. The 
ladies having allowed me to divide a wing between 
them, left me undisputed master of the field. What 
a situation for a man, with a natural fierce appetite, 
rendered ferocious by a ride of eight miles on a fresh 
blowing morning ! Half a luckless chicken, by an ex- 
temporaneous thought, found itself on my plate — this 
vanished, and, ere I could reflect on the consequences, 
the other half had joined its fellow. My ruin was 



110 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION 

evidently approaching — but why do I linger over the 
recital, as if dreading to meet once more the catas- 
trophe? " At one fell swoop/' the fowls,, the tongue, 
the cauliflower,, the asparagus, had gone— the way of 
all flesh; and the ill-suppressed astonishment of my 
companions' countenances assured me that they had been 
otherwise occupied than assisting in the demolition. An 
hour most painfully spent warned me that my ruin was 
fast approaching to a crisis ; and I was suffered to take 
my leave with a cold general invitation to call again. I 
had scarcely left the room ere I heard the death-warrant 
of my hopes signed by the lips of the elder of the ladies. 
" Heavens, Amelia, what a happy escape ! he would 
swallow up your parks, and empty your sheepfolds, in 
a fortnight. The man, I actually declare, has the ap- 
petite of an elephant I" — " Oh ! that I could ever have 
thought so sentimental a looking man could possess such 
a vulgar appetite \" was the heart-rending response of 
the already-forfeited Amelia. 

This is only one of the many anecdotes which have 
given a character to my life. My income, although 
respectable, will hardly pay my butcher's bills, and I 
am become a kind of proverb among dinner-giving peo- 
ple. I never dine at the same place above once, if I 
wish to be treated with common civility; and have 



OF A GOOOD APPETITE. Ill 

had several offers of annuities, upon condition of my 
staying away from those coffee-houses I have taken a 
particular fancy for. I have not the satisfaction of 
knowing that my troubles decrease as I get older, for I 
find that, as my years increase, my masticatory powers 
increase also in strength and vigor. What was a pre- 
vailing characteristic has become a passion ; day and 
night " my heart has one unchanging theme/' and so 
thoroughly is it engrossed by its object, that all its feel- 
ings take their hue from it. Witness the following re- 
lation of a dream which occurred to me, after doing 
justice to a dinner given by a friend of mine at the 
successful conclusion of his election : — 

I thought that the principle of life was annihilated 
within me, and that my soul had passed the boundary 
of the present world, and was hard elsewhere in pursuit 
of that it loved here so dearly — a dinner. I had arrived 
at a vast plain without meeting with the object of my 
wishes, till, on a sudden, the extensive surface around 
became miraculously covered. Loaves of bread, heaped 
into mountains larger than the pyramids, and huge 
heaps of vegetables and fruits every where surrounded 
me. Herds of sheep, which Salisbury Plain could not 
have contained, all without legs, shoulders, loins, sad- 
dles, and haunches, (my favourite joints) ; droves of 



112 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION 

bullocks, calves, and pigs, all more or less deficient ; 
and an unfeathered multitude of turkeys., geese, fowls, 
pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks, so thickly con- 
gregated as to darken the air. As I approached, the 
whole scene appeared animated, and, with the bitterest 
curses and revilings, I heard my name uttered on every 
side — the sheep pointed to their mutilations, and the 
bullocks loudly groaned for their lost ribs and sirloins. 
A voice dared me to face the mountains of loaves, 
which, during my brief sojourn on earth, had passed 
my lips; the geese and turkeys, by their incessant 
cackling and gobbling, threatened me instant annihila- 
tion, and seemed far more numerous than my most 
extensive idea of the locusts of Egypt. At last, I 
thought all seemed gradually to concentrate into one 
huge mass, and then — 

"A change came o'er the spirit of my dream !" 

I beheld the mountain of eatables settle into the body 
of a being, whose corporation was a city of itself, and 
whose stomach was larger than St. Paul's cathedral. 
Horrible creation of a bad digestion — the face of the 
hideous monster bore an exact resemblance to my 
own features ! while a remarkably thin, cheese-paring 
kind of gentleman was crouching at its side, and in a 



II 



OF A GOOD APPETITE. 113 

shrill, squeaking tone of voice, as if he spoke through a 
tobacco-pipe, thus addressed me': — " Shade of the de- 
funct Ezekiel, behold your body and soul — that huge 
mass of matter, which prevents the sun of the celestial 
world shining, was your corporeal self, which, during 
your stay in the nether world, you had swelled and 
pampered to that hideous size, while I am your poor, 
starved, and miserable soul (this was uttered much in 
the tone of a neglected wife), which you famished while 
on earth, and which now is not sufficiently well fed to 
appear in the kingdom of spirits." At the close of this 
speech, the very stout gentleman, who did the part of 
my body, yawned, and in so doing, extended his jaws, 
each of which was within a yard or two of the compass 
of Blackfriars' Bridge, while my discomfited soul rolled 
itself off, and vanished. Even in my sleep, I felt I was 
a nonentity ; and not until morning dawned, and my 
breakfast-time arrived, did my unfailing monitor assure 
me, that my spirituality existed but in imagination. 

Are there no means to lessen the weight under which 
my spirits and my stomach are bowed down ? Is there 
no thunderbolt nor pharmaceutical preparation that will 
annihilate me and my appetite together ? Or am I to 
be left an ever-yawning earthquake, to swallow up the 
fair fruits of the earth, and appropriate the support of 



114 THE SERIOUS AFFLICTION, &C. 

thousands to satisfy the craving desires of one ? In a 
word, is there no remedy for a good appetite ? I have 
heard of many cures for a bad one ; and upon a friend 
of mine having lost his, and being recommended a 
change of air, I actually took his lodgings in Tooley- 
street, in the hopes of being able to meet with the same 
complaint he was so anxious to leave behind him. But 
the insatiate fiend smiled at my endeavours, and a 
fortnight's residence assured me my efforts were inef- 
fectual, my butcher having reported that he had killed 
a sheep extra every week since I had vegetated in his 
abominable neighbourhood. What will become of me 
I know not, if my appetite goes on increasing. Where 
shall I go to ? change of scene or climate lessens not 
the remedy. If I fly upwards, the exercise and fresh 
air will only sharpen its edge ; and if I go downwards, 
thither will my appetite accompany me. Yet, do I blame 
thee, thou cause of all my sufferings and shame? — 
no ; but I ask, what is that solemn peal which calls me 
away ? Is it my death knell ? No, 'tis the dinner bell. 
" Thou marshalFst the way ;" like Macbeth, I follow, 
though to my own perdition— 

" I go, and it is done ; the bell invites me." 






AS THE RAINBOW TO THE STORM. 



As the rainbow to the storm, 

As the star flash to the night, 
Is the bright and tender form, 

To my sad and lonely sight ; 
And I seek it wheresoever 

My unguided glance may stray, 
Until fancy's fond endeavour 

Has returned each faded ray. 

In the gloom of my despair, 

In the wailings of my grief, 
There 's a vision gilds my care, 

There's a voice that speaks relief. 
'Tis the image of my sweet one, 

As it shone upon my youth, 
a Tis her voice — when shall I meet one 

Of such tenderness and truth ? 



THE LAMENT OF DESPAIR. 



Blow on, thou pitiless night wind, blow ! 

For my heart is more cold than the bitterest blast 
That ever hath swept over plains of snow, 

And frozen each flow'ret and brook as it past. 

For the vernal sun will unbind the rill, 

In silvery wandering to shine through the mead, 

And the new-born flow'r on the verdant hill 
Will uplift, unblighted, its tender head. 

But the beams of the summer will never unloose 

The icy fetters of dark despair, 
Nor revive the blossoms that youth, profuse, 

Strew'd over my path, so briefly fair. 

The star of my hope, though dimly seen, 

Though glimmering faintly, still cheer'd me on ; 

But the clouds of adversity floated between, 
And the last inspiriting light is gone. 



THE LAMENT OP DESPAIR. 117 

Yet I linger here like a tombless corse, 

That haunts its lost world tho' ks soul be fled ; 

While the torturing demon of late remorse, 

Like a blood-loving vulture, hangs o'er my head. 

Where the joys of society sparkle around, 
Still cold is my bosom, and languid my eye ; 

As Egyptian mummies, in spices bound, 
Amid odours unscented for ages lie. 

The tear may glisten on beauty's cheek, 

But it only reminds of a deeper woe 
That forbids my eyes for my heart to speak, 

And its anguish away with their streams to flow. 

Though the smile be curling the ruby lip, 
No sympathy wakes it on mine, when seen ; 

For, those are cold that I loved to sip, 

And the rest seem mocking my joyless mien. 

Then foam, ye billows ! and rave, ye skies ! 

While I pillow my brow on this wave- worn stone, 
Whence never, oh ! never, again may I rise, 

But expire unpitied, unheeded — alone ! 



FADING FLOWERS. 



Fading flowers ! fading flowers ! ye are like the sad- 

den'd heart, 
When its hopes, as brief as odours, from it momently 

depart ; 
Ye are like the clouds of evening, as they darken one 

by one, 
After each has had the last faint smile, the farewell of 

the sun. 

But the western clouds have only, when the light of 

day hath ceased, 
To return across the skies and wait its kindling in the 

east ; 
And the fiow'rs, if fragrant ever, will a sweetness still 

retain, 
But the wither'd heart will never shine, will never 

bloom again. 



THOU ART COLD TO ME NOW 



Thou art cold to me now ; but the smile that first won 
me, 

When thou had'st a bosom as ardent as mine, 
Still beams, though, alas ! but in fancy, upon me, 

And, oh ! such a vision's too dear to resign. 

Yes, frown, and the passion-lit glance that once 
brighten' d 
Thy brow shall arise the more fair to my view ; 
Like a far sunny landscape, whose charm is but 
heighten d 
By all the dark boughs it is glimmering through. 

While the sunshine thy love shed around me was 
glowing, 
I stored up in its sweets, like the flow'r-sipping bee, 
Till my heart was so rich, that the summer-time 
going 
Left winter, thy falsehood, no terrors for me. 



120 THOU ART COLD TO ME NOW. 

Chill frowns may overshadow the bright eye of Heaven, 
And along its pure brow the fell storm cloud may 
drive 5 

But unscared by the gloom, by the tempest unriven, 
I feast on the food of remembrance's hive. 

Thou, thou, in the moment o'er which I am sighing, 
Hast arm'd me to bear with the loss of thy truth ; 

As the adder itself has the power of supplying 
A balm for the wound of its venomous tooth. 

And well doth such balm heal the wound of thy 

making ; — 
E'en now through an Eden of mem'ry I roam ; 
For the joys that we dream over, sleeping and 

waking, 
Are equal in bliss, whether past or to come. 



A FAREWELL TO ALBION, 1823. 



Farewell to thee, Albion ! blest land of my sires ! 

I saw thy white cliff like a pearl on the billow, 
When sunk were thy meadows, thy walls, and the spires 

That I hoped would have gleam* d o'er my turf- 
cover' d pillow. 

And thou, whose remembrance will ever awaken 
E'en warmer ideas than the isle of my birth, 

Dearest girl ! though awhile by thy lover forsaken, 
His pray'rs will be thine from the ends of the earth. 

May the wrinkle of care never wither thy brow, 
Or if grief should impress his rude seal upon thee, 

May it vanish as fast as the circles that now 

Spread and fade round my tears as they fall in the sea, 

Yet with naught but the desolate ocean around me, 
So dreadful beneath and so dreary above, 

Still a thousand sweet objects of pleasure surround me, 
Rekindling my heart, when I think of my love. 

G 



122 



A FAREWELL TO ALBION. 



Where the branches of coral beneath me are growing, 
Pellucid as crystal,, though rubies in hue, 

I remember thy lips, how deliciously glowing ! 
When fondly they promised they 'd ever be true. 

While the breezes of eve in soft murmurs are dying, 
As over the smooth rosy waters they sweep, 

I believe that I hear my fond Isabel sighing, 
Ere blushing she sinks on her pillow to sleep. 

In the depth of the night, as the maid of the ocean 

Attunes her lone voice to the wild swelling wind, 
Oh ! I think of the strain that with tender emotion 

Oft melted my soul, on the shore left behind. 
# 

When the beam of the moon on the billows, which 
darkling 

Lie blue as the air, sheds her holiest light, 
Can I fail to reflect on her azure eye sparkling, 

My beacon of hope, that made noonday of night ? 



No. — Thus, though the sun of thy presence hath faded, 
The twilight of memory beams on me yet ; 

And hope gently whispers, though now overshaded, 
That sun shall arise brighter e'en than it set. 



TELL ME NOW THAT THOU ART MINE. 



Tell me, now that thou art mine, 

Why thou wert not sooner so : 
Did thy bosom ne'er repine, 

When thy lips had answered— no? 
When I called up visions bright 

From the realms of hope and bliss, 
Did thy fancy shun the sight ? 

Did thy wishes fly my kiss ? 

What ! and would'st thou have me tell 

How my foolish heart was won ? 
Would'st thou have me break the spell, 

Ere its whole sweet work is done ? 
Many a year, the same light chain 

That has bound me now, should last ; 
And I fear 'twould fall in twain, 

Were a glance but on it cast. 

g2 



I BEHOLD THEE IN MY DREAMS. 



I behold thee in my dreams. 

Ever tender, ever kind ; 
But the morn comes, with her beams, 

And the vision falls behind; — 
Behind the clouds of light 

That enrobe the early sky, 
But can make it not so bright 

As thy soft and swimming eye. 



I behold thee in my dream, 

And I know the dream will vanish : 
Yet so harmless doth it seem, 

That the fraud I do not banish ; — 
But I find, when day hath made 

Me again unloved and lorn, 
That where roses bloom and fade 

There is ever left a thorn. 



I BEHOLD THEE IN MY DREAMS. 125 

In my infancy I loved thee, 

In my manhood I adore; 
And yet all the less I moved thee 

As my flame grew more and more ! 
Thou 'rt a flow'r that look'd on high 

At the sun in his young ray, 
But, when noontide lit the sky, 

Shrank in bashfulness away. 



TO FANCY. 



Fancy ! whither art thou fled ? 

Thou who erst would ne'er forsake 
My noontide bower, or midnight bed. 

Whether I might sleep or wake? 

Oft, when I have turn'd to rest, 
Thou hast frighted sleep away, 

With beams and visions bright and blest — 
Sleep, who shrinks from any ray. 

What, though darkness wrapt me round ? 

I could see thy form behind it : 
Though weariness each limb had bound, 

Thy magic would at once unbind it. 

And at the dead, dull, midnight noon, 
My frame with ecstasy would burn — 

Like his whose brain the treacherous moon 
Fills from her clear but maddening urn — 



TO FANCY. 127 

Till I would fly my pillow'd couch,, 

And seize the soul-embodying pen, 
That to far ages I might vouch 

The marvels thou had'st given my ken. 

Yet, ah ! too oft the hurrying rush 

Of great thoughts would their own strength smother ; 
Like full chimes, when the echoing gush 

Of sound makes one note mar another ; 

And all the unearthly shapes and hues 

Had vanish' d from my spirit's eye, 
Ere from the pageant I could choose 

Where first my mimic skill to ply. 

But among all those lights of Heaven, 

Whose charms I could thus ill express, 

Not one will now shine out — not even 

To cheer a moment's loneliness. 

i 

Each object round me is the same ; — 

I look upon it ; yet I see, 
Not what, of yore, thy wand could frame, 

But a cold coarse reality. 



128 TO FANCY. 

As far from what it was when thou, 
Fancy ! throw'st o'er it thy bright veil, 

As any stript and scentless bough, 
From one before its roses fail. 

Oh ! render back to my poor strain 

The treasures with which then it glow'd, 

That each long idle string again 
May tremble under the rich load. 

Thanks — my breast heaves with sighs of fire ; 

I see, hear, things ne'er shown nor spoken ! 
Now speed thee well my fresh-breathed lyre : 

Ha ! the first chord I struck has broken. 



A SAD ALL HAIL ! 



A sad all hail to thee ! thou day 

On whose unfriendly morn, 
I lost for ever the bright ray, 

Of eyes too soon forsworn. 
They were as full of love and light, 

As any April morning : 
Why was their noon a storm, a blight, 

Of coldness and of scorning ? 

E'en now, thou day of all untruth ! 

Where is thy summer sun ? 
Fades it, as well it may, in ruth 

For what it look'd upon ? 
It saw me gay with love and hope, 

Those sun-beams of the bosom ; 
It saw me in a moment droop, 

Like an ill-gather' d blossom. 

g5 



130 A SAD ALL HAIL ! 

And still again its wonted beam, 

Its summer charm is fled ; 
And clouds have gather' d o'er the gleam, 

The last faint gleam it shed. 
Such is all earthly hope and love, 

And earthly sunshine too ; 
But there are constant hearts above. 

And summers ne'er untrue. 



" GENTLE NOISES." 



Oh ! for the sweet sounds of a rural eve ! 
The chime far-floated on a billowy breeze, 
Now buoying, now o'erwhelming it ; — the faint 
Chorus of infant revelry, so mellow' d, 
By the soft air it struggles through, that none, 
Save its most rapturous and thrilling notes, 
Can reach the longing listener ;— the light carol 
Of some fair-fingered knitter in the sunset, 
Smiling at every wind that lifts her tresses, 
Or, likelier, at the mingled breathings of 
A rustic pipe, sway'd — by the unseen hands 
Of him who must partake some joy with her- — 
Into the same loved melody ; — the bark 
Of dog, the whirr of bat, the buz of insect, 
All musical, when far ; — the liquid horn. 
Clear as it were the very spirit of sound ; — 
Then the last lullaby of parent birds 
Over their sleepy nestlings, where the leaves, too. 



132 " GENTLE NOISES." 

Murmur among themselves in a wild strain 

That seems of her own making 3 — these, oh ! these, 

Are gentle noises that do minister 

So plenteously to the one thrice-joy'd sense,, 

That what more can remain to steep the others 

In like unwishing blessedness., we know not, 

Nor heed we ; so the precious tide run high, 

From thousand rivulets, or a single urn, 

It matters not — the heart can be but full. 



THOU ART WELCOME AS THE DAY. 



Thou art welcome as the day,, lady mine, lady mine, 
As the loveliest of May, lady mine ! 
And the azure- vested night, 
On her summer wings of light, 
Hath not eyes more softly bright 
Than are thine. 

Thou art beautiful as flowers, lady mine, lady mine, 
As the fairest in my bowers, lady mine ! 
I Ve the lily and the rose* 
But the hues that they disclose, 
Oh ! what are they to those 
That are thine ? 

Thou art spotless as the snow, lady mine, lady mine, 
Ere the noon upon it glow., lady mine ! 
But the noon must have its ray, 
And the snow-wreaths melt away, 
And hearts, why should not they ? 
Why not thine ? 



TO SPAIN, IN 1823. 



And art thou fall'n to earth again, 

From the proud heights which thou wert climbing ? 
Still is the rust of slavery's chain, 

The whiteness of thy fame begriming ? 

Ay ! — but each step thy sons have taken, 
Towards hallowed freedom's mountain head, 

Hath smoothed the path where safe, unshaken, 
Their children's happier feet may tread ; 

And every link by valor torn 

Away, though power again unite 
The fetter, makes it easier worn, 

And leaves the crowning toil more light. 

As the young morn of eastern skies, 

To roll night's heavy shades away, 
Ere from her ocean-bed she rise, 

Sends forth betimes a herald ray 



TO SPAIN, IN 1823. 135 

So beauteous, that men deem it her, 

Until they see it backward flying, 
And mark, with momentary fear, 

The radiance that awoke them dying; 

So, liberty a warning beam 

Hath shed, long sorrowing Spain ! o'er thee ; 
And, though it roused thee from thy dream 

Of bondage but to shine and flee, 

Soon, soon, beneath a brighter Heaven, 

Shall her own banner wave unfurl'd. 
And from its orient hues be given, 

Daylight to thee and all the world. 



A NEW ARION. 



Oh ! for a lute like his of yore, 
Whom the charm' d dolphins gaily bore, 
And gratefully, for the sweet song 
That calm'd the seas they sped along, 
Making the green-hair'd Neptune save 
Him, who had else found but a grave 
In that same bright and buoyant wave ! 
So might some natives of the deep — 
Spirits, perchance — as kindly sweep 
With my lorn heart, now fainting fast 
In the dark tide which fate hath cast 
Between my eyes and those which are, 
E'en to myself, more precious far — 
Sweep with it, o'er the severing main, 

To the far land her footsteps bless, 
And show her all that warm heart's pain, 

Its fondness, and its hopelessness. 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 



Brighter and brighter the east is glowing; 
Softer and softer the gale is blowing ; 
Warmer and warmer the brook is flowing ; 

Yet still Flora sleeps ! 
Still she sleeps, while the youth, who keeps 
His lone watch over her, fondly weeps. 

Each flow'r as it opens its dewy bell, 
A fragrant dream to the breeze will tell ; 
But she, the maid whom I love so well, 

Owns not a dream of me — 
Not a dream of me, lest happy we, 
Like blossom and zephyr, too blest should be. 

She sighs, she moves ! my beauty is waking ; 
Oh ! now the morn is really breaking ; 
And ev'ry thing lovely, its rest forsaking, 

Looks out on her ; — 
Looks on her, and unless I err, 
As if nothing so heavenly on earth there were. 



138 STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 

Nay, fly not dearest ! for hark ! the day 
Hath calTd up a minstrel on every spray ! 
To list the sweet music thou sure wilt stay ? 

And what if I join the throng ? 
Join the throng, and each note prolong 
That accordeth best with the lover's sonar. 



THE FOOT OF MUSIC. 



The foot of music is on the waters,, 

Hark, how f airily, featly, it treads ! 
As in the dance of Oreste's daughters, 

Now it advances, and now recedes. 

Now it lingers among the billows, 
Where some fonder one than the rest 

Clasps the rover, in passing, and pillows 
Her softly upon its heaving breast. 

Off she flies ; and her step, though light, 

Makes the green waves all tremble beneath her ! 

Now the quick ear cannot follow her flight, 

And the flood is unstirr'd as the calm blue ether. 

Unseen spirit ! would' st thou but borrow 

A substance and shape for my bosom and eye, 

Oh ! I 'd not wish for another morrow, 

But look at thee, press thee, and gladly die. 



COME DRINK WITH ME. 



Come drink with me ! and may the wine, 

Rousing and gladdening us together, 
Shed over that cold heart of thine, 

One first bright beam of sunny weather, 
I long have pined beneath the shade, 

The wintry low'ring of that brow, 
And it is time, my haughty maid^ 

That I should feel it summer now. 

Well, if I may not drink with thee, 

I needs must pledge me to some other ; 
My soul is ripe for love and glee, 

And mirth's a flame too bright to smother. 
Yet, wheresoe'er my cup is vow'd, 

Not all my heart shall with it go ; 
Still, loveless as thou art, and proud, 

For thee its deepest thoughts will flow. 



LOVE-CHANGES. 



Is it a virtue or a crime to love 

Once and not ever ? Ask the enfranchised soul 
Itself, which in its pride hath soar'd above 

The burning walls of that fond flame's control ; 
Ask whence the lightness of its wandering wing, 

And what the impulse of its alter' d course ; 

Then, if it be that, yielding to the force 
The master-touch of reason, each fine string 
Of the long spell- struck heart at once gave up 

All dalliance with some thought — vain as the wind, 

Give praise, for it is due ; but if you find 
The insatiate sot has only dashed one cup 
Of beauty down, to glut him with another, 
Curst be he with desires which naught may feed or 
smother. 



THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON, 1815. 

Imitated from the Piccolomini of Schleg-el. 



Like the coming of the god of war, 

Kush'd through the earth my name ; 
The drum was beat, and wide and far, 
Hush'd was the anvil's clamorous toil; 
The plough slept on the unfurrow'd soil ; 

And hosts, like billows, tho* with hearts of flame, 
Circling and closing round the long-lov'd banner came. 

And as the warbling wood-choir throng 

Hurriedly round some bird of wonder, 
When from its throat a magic song, 
First, over mountain, plain, and dell, 
And rivulet, is heard to swell, 

Stirring each wave and forest-leaf like thunder, 
So flock' d the youth of France my eagle's bright wing 

under. 
And I am still the being I was then, 
For lion-souls, though chain' d make the whole earth 
their den. 



AH! MY SOUL 



Ah ! iriy soul ! thou quenchless flame, 
Quit awhile this weary frame ! 
Thou may'st endless vigils keep ; 
But the mortal man must sleep, 
Sleep, that he may abler be, 
To fulfil his course with thee. 

Fade awhile, thou constant light, 
Though not shrouded from me quite ! 
So, upon my blissful dreams, 
Thou wilt shine in tender gleams, 
Such as in the grave are given 
To the dead, who dream of Heaven. 



I WAS SAD, 



I was sad in the days of my youth., 

In the fresh glowing morn of my life, 
When around was all kindness and truth, 

And I dreamt not of sorrow or strife. 
There was all I could wish for on earth, 

But my heart was on something above ; 
There was food for its wonder and mirth, 

And for all of its feelings but love. 

And the days of my youth are gone by, 

And the hope that illumined them is fled, 
Like the hues of the sunset, which die 

When the soul of their brightness is dead. 
And now would I fain be at rest ; 

But I have not the wings of a dove ; 
And the grave 's but a desolate nest, 

When we fly not to any we love. 



TO THE SOUL. 



Life of this senseless clay, which but for thee 
More vile, more worthless, and more foul would be 

Than the ne'er-breathing earth on which we tread! 
Sun of the human system ! god of all, 
Save what the Maker deigns his own to call! 

Soul of this body ! thought's clear fountain-head ! 

Oh ! how in vain is thy rich glory shed 

On beings cold and thankless as the dead! 
There is no hour that might not shine with thee ; 
There is no point that fancy's eye can see, 
Which on thy vigorous wing we might not gain, 
Would we but wrench the sullying bonds in twain, 
Which grief and sloth and sin have link'd together, 
Making our days one night, one year of wintry weather. 



H 



TO THE PAST. 



Ye precious years that I have so mis-spent ! 

Ye slighted Hebes of the cup of joy. 
Whom, the more deeply on my welfare bent, 

The more have I delighted to employ 

In works that could but bring us both annoy ! 
Why, when I spurn' d ye as ye past along, 
Or hailed ye but with glee and idle song — 
Why did ye not uplift a warning voice, 
And bid me in my shame no more rejoice ? 
Had ye but then, when first my young feet stray'd 

From wisdom's path of light, had ye but rung 
Into mine ear some boding, 'twould have stay'd 

Their headlong course folly's blind wilds among, 
And my light harp need ne'er with cypress have been 
hung. 



A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 



" 'Tis not a lift — 
'Tis but a piece of childhood, thrown away." 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 



h2 



A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 



I was particularly interested with a rite I saw per- 
formed in the burial of an infant. Wandering in the 
beautiful neighbourhood of Carisbrooke, in the valley 
which leads you direct to the village, I saw approach- 
ing six girls, nearly in white, the first two of whom 
were walking before another couple, who were carry- 
ing a small coffin, without any other pall than a white 
napkin. The same number walked behind, and a 
man and a female, who, from their unsuppressed grief, 
I conjectured were the parents, closed the groupe. I 
do not know whether it was the scenery, highly beau- 
tiful and picturesque, that might not have softened my 
feelings in witnessing this simple, but touching cere- 
mony. A chain of blue hills, covered with verdure 
and wood, stretched themselves to the boundary 
of three-fourths of the horizon, till lost in ether; 
while the village, immediately before us, lay at the 
foot of the valley, half concealed by the intervening 



150 A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 

trees, above which the gothic tower of the church rose 
in an airy and proud elevation ; the awful ruins of the 
castle shut out the remainder of the scope, bringing 
with it many a saddening thought of its by-gone power 
and splendor. The sight of the coffin too, and the 
image of its tenant, snatched from earth ere it could 
estimate its joys or its sorrows, was before me, reposing 
in the quietude of death, like a waxen effigy. Its little 
day of life had been clouded by sorrow and pain, and 
who, though mourning its loss, could welcome it back 
to a world like this ? The exquisite thought of Beau- 
mont, assured me 'twas 

" Not a life — 
'Tis but a piece of childhood, thrown away." 

The style of the funeral seemed also in keeping with 
its object. The uniform appearance of the maidens, 
clothed in the garb of purity, their personal beauty, 
and sorrowing, and unassuming behaviour, stripped 
death of his dismal characteristics, as if the loss 
they deplored should be considered rather a blessing 
conferred than as a cruel bereavement. The mourn- 
ing groupe passed before me, and I soon rejoined them 
at the last scene of mortality's pilgrimage. The grave 
had been fancifully chosen, under a large and aged 



A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 151 

tree, around which the clergyman and mourners were 
already assembled. The season was the decline of the 
year, and the time nearly sun-set ; and, as the wind 
swept by in melancholy murmurs, the whole spirit of 
the scene seemed to creep through me — the pipings of 
the feathered tribe died away on the breeze, and the 
air had a characteristic silence and solemnity, till 
broken by the voice of the clergyman, who feelingly 
repeated the rites for our departed brother over his 
grave. There was a well sustained composure over the 
faces of the party, till the awful crisis — " Ashes to 
ashes, dust to dust," bid the deed follow the word. 
As the dry earth rattled against the coffin, it seemed as 
if it knocked against the hearts of every one who wit- 
nessed the ritual. The mother mourned for her lost 
one, and, in despite of the affectionate solicitude for 
her young friends, " would not be comforted." Grief, 
whatever form it assumes, has a claim to our sympathy, 
but when convulsing the countenance of a young and 
pleasing female it is more than usually subduing. The 
father, whose coarse, but honest features had hitherto 
discovered no other feeling than a manly dejection, 
now leaned over the pit which had swallowed up his 
last, his best, and his only one, and kept his eyes 



152 A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 

fixed there, as if the remainder of the earth had for 
him no longer a charm. Ere the grave diggers pre- 
pared to fill up the vacuum, each of the females took 
from her bosom a sprig of rosemary (a primitive custom 
of the country),, and giving one long look into the nar- 
row cell, threw into it this last offering of affection. 
All that remained to close this touching duty was for 
the parents to follow their example : they held the 
branches of rosemary in fcheir hands, looked at them 
wistfully, and when they parted with them, seemed to 
feel that they had till that moment a sensible memorial 
of their child — and now all was gone. Once more 
they looked into the grave— they sobbed bitterly — 
the sexton filled his shovel — they gazed on the shell 
with that dreadful consciousness, that it was for the 
last time — and in a moment afterwards it was co- 
vered with earth. The hard features of the man 
seemed to writhe before they would relax, till at last 
one large drop rolled down his cheek, while the mo- 
ther was carried away in a state of insensibility. Sub- 
duing as the grief of a woman may be, there is some- 
thing that harrows the soul in the sight of a man's 
tears — the drop seems wrung from his bleeding heart 
with the pincers of agony. 



A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 



153 



I stayed viewing the work of the sextons, which 
they completed with their usual business-like air, en- 
deavouring to hush my jarring feelings with the beau- 
tiful lines of Moore — 

" Weep not for those whom the vale of the tomb, 

In life's happy morning, hath hid from our eyes; 
Ere sin threw a blight o"er the spirit's young bloom, 

Or ear:h had profau'd what was born for the skies : 
Death chill'd the fair fountain ere sorrow had stain'd it — 

'Twas frozen in all the pure light of its course, 
And but sleeps till the sunshine of Heaven has unchain'd it, 

To meet in that Eden where first was its source." 

Tranquilly as I witnessed the scene, I am not one 
of those who console such as are visited with this be- 
reavement with the usual exclamation — <( How envi- 
able to be cut off so early from the world !" Although 
the early destiny of the babe may be viewed with 
mixed feelings, yet, for my own part, I think it be- 
trays a morbid and repining spirit to rejoice at its 
sudden departure from the earth. If the greatest 
blessing that can be conferred upon us, is to be snatched 
from the world just as we have barely entered into it, 
by a parity of reasoning, the beginning and duration 
of life must be esteemed a curse — such an assumption 
defeats the natural object of existence ; are we brought 

h5 



154 A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 

into life, like the Chancellor in the drama, merely to 
shake onr heads and leave the stage ? 

The only feelings of joy with which a generous mind 
can contemplate premature death, is, that the claims of 
the deceased to the exalted and imperishable joys of 
immortality must, from its innocence, be acknow- 
ledged without that examination, which few, more 
advanced in years, are prepared for, or do not shrink 
from. There is nothing more delightfully associated 
than our ideas of a dead infant; it is the type of an 
angel — the representative of the Godhead. If we lose 
a friend, one advanced in years, feeling from our own 
weakness the liability of another to err, a fear, even in 
all our hopes for his immortality, will intrude. The 
mind cannot oiFer itself the consolation which, in the 
case of pristine innocence, naturally occurs, where we 
think of the lost one immediately after its decease as 
a cherub nestled in the bosom of Heaven. 

The grief of a parent who has never lost a child of a 
mature age is more lively when the victim is an infant 
than when it is grown j the feelings for the first are 
deeper and more permanent, while, for the other, they 
are more rapid and violent. A mother who is deprived 
of her last-born knows no alleviation to her sorrow ; 



A VILLAGE FUNERAL. 155 

she thinks not of the many that yet remain to comfort 
her; she almost dares to repine at the will of Heaven 
for depriving her of the purest and most innocent. She 
forgets that her babe has not, as yet, gone through the 
world of suffering, of pain, and of misery, that falls to 
the share of every sojourner in this unhappy world. 
She forgets that the innocent heart, which God hath 
so early claimed for his own, would, had it remained 
much longer here, have been denied by a mingling with 
the feelings of our nature, and perhaps lost its pristine 
beauty and purity. She forgets that the long and wea- 
risome journey we are sent to perform, in the hopes of 
obtaining at last the goal of hope and righteousness, is 
saved to the little one, and that it at once enjoys the 
bliss of the kingdom of Heaven, without ever having 
participated in the sorrows and miseries of earth. 

Besides, were a mother to think of the revolution 
that is saved to her own feelings, she would not repine 
at the Creator's will. She should remember that, was 
the life of her child insured against the perils and 
pains of infancy, the brightest gem of her existence 
would be gone. If she looked upon her babe as secure 

against the 

" thousand ills 
Which flesh is heir to," 

she would be a stranger to all those delicious hopes, and 



156 A TILLAGE FUNERAL. 

even fears, which constitute the most vital feelings of 
a parent's breast. 

Let her not repress her grief entirely, it is one of the 
greatest errors of our nature to deny our feelings vent. 
The disciple of schools may tell us, that our tears are 
useless, and that they will not bring the dead to life, 
but he knows not the balm they pour into the soul. It 
is the inutility of our despair that causes its continu- 
ance. We weep, with the reflection that it avails us 
not — that it will not restore breath to the inanimate 
body, nor make the dead-cold eyes once more glisten 
with the consciousness of existence 3 tears, though the 
symbols of grief, are in truth the harbingers of joy, for, 
in giving vent to our emotions, they become ex- 
hausted. 



" MERRY ENGLAND 1 



MAY MORNING. 



u Woods and groves are of thy dressing ; 
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing, 
Thus we salute thee with early song, 
And welcome wish thee, and wish thee long." 

Milton. 



MERRY ENGLAND' 



MAY MORNING. 



May, May ! — our heart leaps, and we grow ten years 
younger at the word. It is really no mean thing, in the 
common-place world of prose in which we live, to feel 
a stimulus awakening what little of poetry and love 
that is left us. May has been, since the beginning of 
the world, the season of love and of flowers, the earth 
and the heart then sprout with their loveliest and most 
amiable blossoms. May is, time out of mind, the poet's 
holiday j and nature looks on her favorite with her 
kindest eyes, and puts on her birth-day suit to bid him 
welcome. Surely our forefathers never left us a sounder 
proof of their wisdom than in consecrating the most 
delicious season of the year to the renewal of loves and 
friendships, as if the best feelings of the heart and the 
flowers of the earth took, at the same time, a new lease 
of existence. 



]60 " MERRY ENGLAND'' 

I do not know how it is, but with all the freshening 
of feeling which the simplicity of our ancestors brings 
on me, I am rather disposed to be melancholy on the 
occasion. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
is, we have ceased to be a poetical country. We are, 
in serious prose, a nation of stock-jobbers, political 
economists, and shopkeepers. Let us take a spring 
back of a few centuries, when Spenser, Shakspeare, 
" Rare Ben," Middleton, Beaumont, and a host of lesser 
lights, spread a charm over the face of nature, softened 
the harsh shadows of reality, and gave immortality to 
the joys by which they were surrounded. Let us com- 
pare a May morning as they described, to the one 
usually spent by us. 

Early after midnight, troops of youths and lasses, 
donned in their holiday attire, repaired, ere the sun 
gave them light, to the nearest wood. Here the haw- 
thorn was plundered of its choicest blossoms, and the 
young votaries of love and nature, decorated with 
flowers and May-buds, bent their steps homeward, 
making their windows and doorways bear testimony of 
their early rising. A May-pole was then erected, 
adorned with garlands of flowers — the merriest man 
was lord of the revels, and the prettiest girl queen of 



ON MAY MORNING. 161 

the day. Dance, song, and glee, lent wings to the 
hours, and the hushing twilight discovered our fore- 
fathers in all their ignorance, and all their happiness. 
Occasionally, the sports would be varied by trials of 
skill, in pitching the bar, or the more national and 
ambitious display of archery. This was not all confined 
to the male part of the revellers — the ladies had their 
share of the entertainment. Although they took no 
part in the contest, they were present as the arbitresses, 
and awarded the prizes to the victor. Each youthful 
aspirant felt his sinews braced, and his blood flow in a 
warmer current, by each kind and encouraging look 
thrown on him by his ladye-love, as she admired the 
athletic turn of his limbs, his manly grace, and vigo- 
rous energy. Then would the days of merry old 
Sherwood come across the recollection of the party ; 
and Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and his foresters green, 
find willing and efficient representatives in a rural 
masque. The sports of the evening would generally 
finish under the May-pole ; — the young would dance 
round it to the enlivening sounds of the pipe and tabor, 
while the old, as they sat looking on, and passing to 
each other the cheerful bowl, would, in recounting 
their youthful pranks, feel the sun of revelry thawing 



162 " MERRY ENGLAND" 

the frost about their hearts, and, remembering they 
were once young, forget entirely that they had grown 
old:— 

" O thou delicious spring ! O ye new flowers, 

O airs, O youngling bowers ; fresh tliick'ning grass, 

And plain' beneath Heaven's face ; O hills and mountains, 

Vallies, and streams, and fountains ; banks of green 

Myrtles, and palm serene, ivies and bays ; 

And ye who warm'd old lays, spirits o' the woods, 

Echoes, and solitudes, and lakes of light ; 

O quivered virgins bright, Pans rustical, 

Satyrs and Sylvans all, Dryads, and ye 

That up the mountains be ; and ye beneath 

In meadow or flowery heath — ye are alone. * 

Alone ! well we may say " those days are gone" — 
we are every day less and less e< Merry England/' 
The civil wars of the revolution, while it stained our 
soil with their crimson tide, dried up the spirit of ro- 
mance and poetry in our ancestors' veins. As we have 
become enlightened, we have ceased to be poetical ; we 
have lost poetry, and we have gained steam-engines. 
The peasants of the most romantic and secluded of our 
counties would rather spend their holiday at a dog or 
a man-fight, or in the smoky kitchen of a public-house, 
than join in the gayest sports of the loveliest of May- 

* Leigh Hunt, from the Italian of Sannazaro. 



OK MAY MORNING. 183 

mornings. And it is not they alone from whose hearts 
the bloom has gone. Our modern ladies and gentle- 
men would faint at the vulgar smell of a hawthorn 
bush in bloom, and would rather be suffocated in a 
select party of three hundred fashionables in a crowded 
drawing-room, than join a masque in which the Sydneys, 
and Raleighs, and the fine spirits of the olden time 
loved to mingle. We no longer regard our fields and 
meadows with the love of nature, but look upon them 
with an eye to the rent-roll ; — not with the thought of 
their flowers and glades, but how much they will 
bring an acre. A sigh and a farewell for the days that 
are gone, and 

" Back to busy life again." 

May ! thou art still as fragrant and blooming as when 
nature first formed thee, the young year's favorite ! 
Thy fields are as green, thy flowers as fresh — thy skies 
are as blue, and thy streams are as clear — but, oh ! thou 
art become the shadow of a name ! It is our hearts, and 
not thou, which are altered. 

But if we are so grown the slaves of circumstance 
as not to be qualified to enjoy the luxuries of a May 
morning in reality, let us do so in imagination. If our 
readers want assistance, let them get to heart the fol- 



164 " MERRY ENGLAND" 

lowing verses, in which is endeavoured to be infused 
a little of the freshness and simplicity of the olden 
time. 

SONG FOR MAY MORNING. 



It is May, it is May ! 

And all earth is gay, 

For at last old winter is quite away : 

He linger'd awhile on his cloak of snow, 

To see the delicate primrose blow ; 

He saw it, and made no longer stay— 

And now it is May, it is May ! 

It is May, it is May ! 

And we bless the day 

When we first delightedly so can say ; 

April had beams amidst her showers, 

Yet bare were her gardens, and cold her bowers ; 

And her frown would blight, and her smile betray, 

But now it is May, it is May ! 

It is May, it is May ! 

And the slenderest spray 

Holds up a few leaves to the ripening ray, 

And the birds sing fearlessly out on high, 

For there is not a cloud in the calm blue sky ; 

And the villagers join their roundelay — 

For, oh ! it is May, it is May ! 

It is May, it is M ay ! 
And the flowers obey 
The beams which alone are more bright than they ; 



ON MAY MORNING. 165 

Yet they spring at the touch of the sun, 
And opening their sweet eyes, one by one, 
In a language of beauty seem all to say 
And of perfume — 'tis May, it is May ! 

It is May, it is May ! 

And delights that lay 

ChilTd and enchain' d beneath winter sway, 

Break forth again o'er the kindling soul, 

And soften, and soothe it, and bless it whole. 

Oh ! thoughts more tender than words convey 

Sigh out — It is May, it is May ! 



RURALIZING. 



"Here hang no comets in the shape of crowns, 

To shake our sweet contents ; nor here 

Cares, like eclipse, darken our endeavours, 

We live here without rivals, kiss with innocence, 

Our thoughts as gentle as our lips." 

Beaumont and Fletcher, 



At that peculiar season of the year, when it approaches 
to something of the nature of a crime to be detected 
in the act of vegetating within the bills of mortality, 
after a few brief preparations, I seated myself within a 
mail I saw standing at the extremity of Piccadilly, and 
soon found myself rolling away at the rate of ten miles 
an hour, without even knowing or inquiring whither I 
and my fellow travellers were destined. Having nestled 
myself to my most unqualified approbation in a very 
comfortable corner, and being baffled, by the approach- 
ing evening, in my attempts to discover the inhabitants 
of the three bundles of cloaks and great coats which 
held, in copartnership with myself, the temporary oc« 



i 



168 RURALIZING. 

cupancy of the vehicle, I fell into a train of reflections, 
the tenor of which the reader will have no particular 
occasion to regret if I have most thoroughly forgotten. 
After we had proceeded a stage or two, the soprano 
notes which issued from the noses of my companions 
produced a lullaby of such a soothing nature, that, 
bidding the world good-night, I yielded to its over- 
whelming influence, for the express purpose of making 
a quartet of this subduing terzetto. My treacherous 
memory will not recall the exact subject of my dreams, 
they were doubtless of a most imaginative description ; 
but being a lover of veracity, I should tremble at being 
suspected of indulging in that coloring by which 
travellers of all descriptions are so unfortunately dis- 
tinguished. The only object during the evening that 
made any sensible impression on me, was the form of a 
remarkably bulky lady, which, in the course of her 
slumbers, had disenfranchised itself from what she called 
her husband " wrap-rascal." When I awoke, the "pur- 
ple gleam of day" discovered a stranger's nose, short, 
red, and of the genuine pug, which, with the head it 
belonged to, was reposing on my shoulder, on the terms 
of a seven years' intimacy. Relieving myself as politely 
as circumstances would permit of this unexpected ob- 



RURALIZING. 169 

ligation, the coach, or rather the horses completed their 
intended course, in a village wearing so primeval an air 
of simplicity, and in so sequestered a spot, that I, whose 
last view of the earth happened to be that most un- 
romantic of all situations, the White Horse Cellar, 
imagined I was suddenly dropped into Arcadia, till the 
appearance of the ostler, in top boots, effectually broke 
the delusion. 

Rosedale ! thou art indeed a delightful little spot ! I 
wish the reader had it but as effectually in his mind's 
eye as I have at this moment. The high road does not ge- 
nerally run through it ; an exceedingly steep hill is ne- 
cessary first to be gained, ere you enter the village, which 
is situated in a really pastoral valley. A decent village 
inn, such an one as Morland would have delighted to 
paint, a fat landlady at the door way, a meditative cow 
stretching her neck from her habitation, a la'zy stable- 
boy swinging on a gateway, and a few pigs lounging 
with an air of the most fashionable indifference about the 
foreground, filled up one side of the picture -, nests of 
white little habitations, covered with creeping plants, 
which would, against your sober judgment, make you 
dream of " love in a cottage •" a rustic church, with an 
ivy-covered tower, and dark hanging groves of trees at a 

I 



170 RURALIZING. 

distance, determined me to remain where chance had so 
unexpectedly thrown me, fully assured, were I to travel 
from <( Indus to the Pole/' I should not discover a nook 
of the earth more agreeable to what were then my ex- 
isting feelings. "Here," I exclaimed., with as much 
innocent enthusiasm as if I had never partaken of them, 
<c will I live, not only away from the smoke of the city 
of iniquities, but also from its hollow gaities and palling 
allurements. Here, amidst scenes of pastoral simplicity, 
shall I meet with that undisturbed harmony, and equa- 
nimity of feelings which distinguish man, ere the 
seducing refinements of polished life have extended 
their baneful influence. My landlady, knowing that 
even men of so sentimental a cast as myself require oc- 
casional feeding, with a nice perception of my more im- 
mediate wants, interrupted my soliloquy with the break- 
fast paraphernalia. There was bread that even made 
the snowy texture of the table-cloth grow pale, eggs, 
coffee, ham, water-cresses that looked still growing, and 
all the other substantial items of a country breakfast- 
table. As J threw open the casement, and let in the 
fresh breeze of the morning, and the scent of a few 
neighbouring jessamines, I felt a most vigorous ccmtest 
for superiority between my appetite and enthusiasm. 



RURALIZING. 171 

The curling wreaths from the chimnies of the few cot- 
tages near divested them from every thing like vulgarity., 
and, before breakfast was concluded, my landlady had 
made arrangements for me with a respectable elderly 
lady, who would have no objection to ' c take in a single 
gentleman, and do for him/' The sun which I had 
viewed on the evening before from a back window, 
shedding his farewell light on some exceedingly dirty 
chimney pots, now I had the satisfaction of seeing sink 
under his glorious panoply behind a distant range of 
hills, from the parlour window in my new habitation, 
and after a night's hearty repose I sallied forth to make 
further discoveries. 

, There was no town I found of any consequence ad- 
jacent, and very few of the higher or middling classes of 
society ; perhaps, under any other circumstance, this 
would have been sufficient to deter me from fixing my 
abode at this charming little spot for any length of 
period, but in my then good humour with all around 
me, every thing was viewed through the same warm 
and glowing medium. 

But, alas ! it has become a stale truth that the world 
is chequered with disappointment ; I feel much disposed 
to moralize, but, as I am told that is not my forte, shall 

i2 



172 RURALIZING. 

relate the story of my self-delusion with no more gra- 
vity than the serious moral lesson which it inculcates 
deserves. To my sorrowful certainty I found, upon a 
nearer acquaintanceship with the inhabitants, that the 
rustic simplicity and pastoral repose which I had so 
much admired in the village extended only to its ex- 
terior. Alas ! who could have thought that party fac- 
tion could ever have found its way into the bosom of so 
humble and unambitious a receptacle. 

But there the grim monster had crept, and drew his 
breath with as much freedom as if he was a genuine 
denizen of the soil. Was it high church and low church 
principles, tythes, the game laws, whig or tory, those 
inexhaustible subjects of contention and argument, and 
consequently ill-will in the great world, that disturbed 
the peace of this little nook ? No matters of such im- 
portance ever troubled the heads of those who entered 
into the parties of Miss Jones and Miss Baker, the 
Canning and Brougham of Rosedale. 

The fathers of these ladies were two of the principal 
personages of the village, and were of the respectable 
fraternity of tailors. Without tracing back their an- 
cestry till the period they first settled in Rosedale, I 
shall simply observe that Jones had for a short time 






RURALIZING. 173 

been considered as king of the little territory, till 
Baker, who had been a foreman at a neighbouring town, 
having some small property left him in the village, 
removed his shop-board there, and, in consequence of 
his importance as a landed proprietor, became a very 
formidable rival to Mr. Jones, who had hitherto mo- 
nopolized all the tailoring in Rosedale. 

It was a question of such deep importance which was 
the greatest man of the two, that, although it had been 
discussed for more than twenty years, it remained as 
undetermined as if it were to have been settled in the 
Court of Chancery. One half thought it was Jones, 
and the other were of opinion it was Baker. While 
they managed to set all about them to neglect their 
concerns, the thrifty pliers of the needle took a lesson 
from their neighbours, and minded their own; apt to 
differ on all points, they perfectly coincided in one, 
which was to make money as fast as they could : for- 
tune smiled upon their endeavours, and each, to the 
other's mortification, grew comfortably rich. 

They had each a daughter; and both of these pos- 
sessed their fathers' spirit of rivalry, not to say jealousy, 
which strengthened with their ideas of their own im- 
portance, so that by the time they had arrived at the 



174 RURALIZING. 

age of discretion, they had become two of the most in- 
discreet girls in the village. 

As Miss Jones and Miss Baker had each a party of 
their own, which they respectively headed, they were 
frequently called on to decide every dispute relative to 
the important question of distinction, which, with a 
spirit of impartiality that would make them appear of 
belonging to a higher class of society, they invariably 
decided in the way most conducive to their separate 
ways of thinking. If Miss Jones, or Miss Baker, said 
this or that, there was an end to the matter as far as 
regarded her party, while those who enlisted on the 
other side were sure to take precisely the contrary 
course, in order to keep up the pure spirit of opposition. 
Whether the point to be discussed related to the duck- 
ing of a vagabond in a horse-pond, the papering of a 
ringlet, or the pickling of onions, it met with a most 
elaborate investigation, and vigorous opposition. Time, 
which cares not a fig for all the Miss Jones's and 
Bakers in the world, jogged on as usual. Neither 
Miss Jones nor her rival were exceedingly handsome, 
but as the village swains looked on their respective 
papas as very warm old gentlemen, the young ladies 
had always a dozen of hearts ready, as roasted apples, 



RURALIZING. 175 

to break, whenever they were matrimonially inclined. 
Their merits and demerits were so equally balanced, 
that it was impossible to say which of the two ladies 
was the most amiable example. They therefore swayed 
their little aristocracy, as joint monarchs, till an event 
occurred, which nearly proved the downfal of Miss 
Baker's sovereignty. 

This was the importation of a London lady, who con- 
descended to visit the family of old Jones, being dis- 
tantly related. Oh! for the triumphant feelings of 
Miss Betsy Jones, when her friend Miss Jenkins, of 
Bedford Bury, entered with her into the church. How 
she bridled, and what a number of disdainful glances 
she cast at her ill-starred rival, who wondered who the 
forward creature could be that monopolized the atten- 
tion of the greatest part of the congregation. The 
parson was observed to return the bow of the old gen- 
tleman with a most reverential smile, and the clerk 
snuffled out what had long been decided as Miss Bet- 
sy's favorite psalm, which of course the Bakers de- 
clared the most ungenteel in the old version. These 
gay doings were not confined to the church alone; 
dances on the green, Pope Joan parties, and innumerable 
tea-drinkings took place among the victorious party, 



176 RURALIZING. 

and many, indeed, of the other side voluntarily surren- 
dered, and joined the enemy. 

But with all her vigorous attempts at gentility, 
Miss Betsy failed in convincing her elegant friend, 
that the society of Rosedale was as exclusive as it was 
select. Miss Jenkins had, upon several occasions, 
mentioned her abhorrence of country sports, having 
imbibed notions of fashions from a constant habit of 
reading the Lady's Monthly Museum, and walking 
regularly in the Park between church hours on each 
succeeding Sunday : her horror for every thing vulgar 
was so exceedingly well bred, that, upon a hale, bluff 
son of the plough giving her a kiss, it is a well authen- 
ticated fact, that she scented herself with rose-water, 
and kept a little camphor next her skin for upwards of 
a week afterwards. 

Upon the pressing invitation of her friend to spend 
a short time at her establishment in town, the oppor- 
tunity was not disregarded by Miss Betsy, who knew 
what an ascendancy she would acquire over her luck- 
less rival by a visit to London. " The establishment" 
of Miss Jenkins* papa was nothing better nor worse 
than a respectable cheesemonger's shop, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Covent Garden, which, although it was 



RURALIZING. 177 

an even distance from both St. Giles's and St. James's, 
she kept continually assuring her protegee that it was 
in the west end. It was here that the unsophisticated 
Miss Jones was to be initiated into the mysteries of high 
life and genteel society. 

Without describing the elegant parties that she joined 
in Long Acre,, and the fashionable people she was in 
the habit of drinking tea with in St. Martin's Lane, 
I shall reserve my powers of delineation until the 
young aspirant returned to her native village. As the 
coach did not usually run through the village, Mr. Jones 
had buckled his mare to his old chaise, which seldom 
saw daylight, except on an occasion of such vital import- 
ance as this. Scarcely had Miss Betsy, or, as she had 
latterly sunk that name (it being the opinion of the 
Jenkins's, that Eliza was softer and genteeller), Miss 
Eliza Jones reassumed her station at the head of her 
thrifty father's household, before she determined to 
prove " that she had not been to- London for 
nothing," and accordingly made immediate pre- 
parations for a fierce campaign. The affairs of her 
rival were evidently drawing to a crisis; she was 
losing her strength, and that unless she gathered to- 
gether her forces, and made a vigorous rally, it was 

i 5 



178 RURALIZING. 

a dead certainty she would be completely beaten off 
the field. 

The first disposition towards hostility was evinced 
by the enemy in the following sanguinary acts. An old 
acquaintance was cut for calling her Bet, without the 
complimentary adjunct : a little boy was whipped by 
the schoolmaster (who, it was whispered, was a secret 
ally of the Jones's) for not bringing his handkerchief 
to church, or at least for forgetting that he had one : 
and condign punishment was inflicted on the head of 
her respectable father, by depriving it of his caxon, and 
substituting powder and pomatum in its place. Strange 
that so many wonders should occur from a six weeks' 
residence at Bedford Bury ! 

The good folks of Rosedale, now no longer felt an 
inclination to visit London, as London was evidently 
visiting them ; so great were the marvels which Miss 
Jones's return had worked. The amusements formerly 
in vogue were discarded, with the curse of vulgarity 
attached to them ; amongst other improvements, whist 
was substituted for Pope Joan. The hour of meeting 
was changed from half-past four to seven, and it passed 
into an irrevocable law, that gentlemen attending the 
tea-table of the Jones's were not allowed to smoke. 



HURALIZING. 179 

The old cronies of the village used to shake their heads 
and look wise at these interpolations, and, when Miss 
Jones would pass them in her beaver hat and feathers, 
would look exceedingly knowing, and hint about know- 
ing a vast deal of which they were entirely ignorant. To 
put the finishing stroke to these refinements, a dancing 
master was actually invited from a neighbouring town, 
as master of the ceremonies for a subscription assembly, 
which was to be under the direct patronage and in- 
fluence of Miss Jones. 

But Miss Baker had a soul above the frowns of fate, 
and although they were bent rather murkily upon her, 
she determined not to give up the contest without a 
struggle. As her rival had become the patroness of a 
dancing assembly, she announced her resolution of insti- 
tuting a concert-room. In consequence of her father 
having purchased a spinnett at a great bargain, she had 
latterly become exceedingly musical ; the parish clerk 
gave her lessons, as also in singing, in which latter 
accomplishment he was thought to arrive very nearly at 
perfection. The votaries of Terpsichore practised their 
orgies at a barn, while the music meeting flourished in 
the large room of the inn ; the latter assembly had al- 
ready a very formidable band, for, besides the first 



180 RURALIZING. 

spoken of spinnett, a trombone, a clarionet, and two 
pitch-pipes were added, to say nothing of the bugle of 
the coachman, who occasionally indulged the "Sons of 
Harmony," as the society was named, with a solo. 

But c< harmony, celestial harmony/' was not to be 
drawn from any of the instruments, however lustily 
they might be exercised ; and whether they danced 
with the Jones's, or squalled with the Bakers', the 
worthy folk of Jtosedale were as unsettled, and as fac- 
titious as ever. So, having from this little world drawn 
many a reflection which I imagined might prove of 
service in a more extensive sphere, I bade adieu to 
Rosedale, with all its beauties, and increasing gentility; 
took possession, with infinite cordiality, of my forsaken, 
though solitary chambers, and occasionally dream of 
some retired nook, where neither London nor fashion 
have been heard of, and where simplicity and rural 
happiness remain undisturbed. Ever since I have 
been busily employed poring over a huge map of the 
world for two places, called Utopia and Arcadia, but 
my researches have as yet been unsuccessful. 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 



An honorable member of a certain enlightened assem- 
bly, who had greatly distinguished himself by his to- 
pographical ingenuity and taste for good society, had, 
in the course of some statistical researches, discovered 
a part of the globe hitherto unknown, called by the 
natives Russell Square, and which was considered 
would be an important acquisition to the English do- 
minions. A council of state was called upon this occa- 
sion, who, after six successive meetings, determined 
upon sending out an expedition, at the head of which 
was the original discoverer, to reconnoitre, and, if eli- 
gible, to take possession of the terra incognita in the 
name and behalf of the British crown. Unfortunately, 
I was myself at that time engaged in oddity-hunting 
in another part of the world, and was consequently 
unable to join the adventurous party, but have learned 
the whole particulars from the mouth of an intimate 
friend, who formed a portion of it, and who obliged 



184 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

me with the tie of a cravat of one of the extraordinary 
inhabitants of the soil. His relation is to the following 
effect : — 

(e The conditions of our enterprise having been finally 
arranged, and our instructions delivered, sealed by the 
Lords of the Admiralty, after a few months' prepara- 
tion we were enabled to commence our adventurous 
career. Prayers having been put up for our safe re- 
turn, our wills having been made, and, in case of our 
never returning from 

' That undiscovered country (Russell Square), 
From whence (it was dreaded) no traveller returns,' 

our property secured, as well as handsome annuities to 
our wives and children, we embarked on board the 
Admiralty yacht from Whitehall Stairs. Here a 
scene that would have melted the heart of a stoic took 
place. The difficulties and horrors of our campaign, 
the melancholy fates of Mungo Park, and Captains Cook 
and Bow ditch, the agonizing consequences of starva- 
tion, cannibalism, and vulgarity, which we were likely 
to encounter in these unknown regions, were depicted 
in their most vivid and powerful colors. But each of 
us was a Roman, a Columbus, prepared to stand or fall 
in the service of his country. 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 185 

" The vessel left the shores amidst the tears,, groans, 
and perfumed handkerchiefs of the surrounding multi- 
tude ; so heart-rending were our adieux, that three offi- 
cers of the guards, overcome by the afflicting crisis, went 
into strong hysterics, and were obliged to have their stay- 
laces cut. Standing on the poop of the vessel with a 
white handkerchief in one glove, and a bottle of Eau 
de Cologne in the other, we waved farewell to our 
friends, and, as the last vestige of their whiskers dis- 
appeared from our sight, a sad presentiment filled our 
minds that it was for ever. The gloom that this af- 
flicting idea naturally cast over us had scarcely sub- 
sided, before we were violently seized with the sea- 
sickness (the tide running up then very strongly), but 
by a prompt application of a cordial, with which our 
considerating friends and relatives had provided us, we 
soon recovered sufficiently to enjoy the novelty of our 
situation. Groups of beings, wearing the form and 
countenances of men, though most barbarously disguised, 
occasionally passed us in what we supposed to be canoes, 
saluting us in an unknown and discordant tone. Our 
voyage concluded at a point which, we have since been 
informed, was discovered by a noble lord in a sailing 
expedition, where he was driven by adverse winds and 



186 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

tides, and baptised by him " Waterloo Bridge/' after a 
certain victory supposed to have been obtained by the an- 
cient Britons some time previous to the flood. Having 
landed, we were immediately surrounded by a native 
tribe of a warlike and barbarous aspect, being in almost 
a primitive dress, having only the lower part of their 
persons covered. The appearance of their skin was 
most remarkable ; it was intersected by blue seams, as 
if nature had supplied them with a shirt of her own 
formation — for not the slightest appearance of muslin 
or cambric was visible. The name of this horde of 
barbarism is, as we were afterwards informed, in their 
native patois. Scullers, and from the circumstance of 
their appearing peculiar to the river and its banks, the 
Professor of Natural History, whom we carried with 
us, after an elaborate investigation, declared them to 
be, peculiar to the soil, members of the animal kingdom, 
of a species between the alligator and crocodile. After a 
most minute inspection of our dress and habiliments, 
which apparently excited in their simple breasts the 
most intense curiosit) 7 ", we were suffered to depart, 
happily without experiencing any injury or annoyance, 
save that of an odour (particularly villanous), which 
arose from certain cavities in their faces, which served 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 187 

the creatures for mouths ; and which odours, we have 
since discovered, was the effluvia caused by masticat- 
ing a noxious herb, also peculiar to the soil, called by 
the natives bacco, or quid-^ -the real name we unfortu- 
nately could not discover. 

" Previously to our progression from this station, we 
had an opportunity of seeing, what our naturalist has 
declared to be since, the squaw, or female Sculler, 
bearing in her paws, or arms, one of its young. It is 
an animal of hardly any perceptible distinction from 
the male Sculler, save that it has longer hair on the 
head, and a total or partial absence of that excrescence 
from the chin and upper lip. Our suspicion that the 
whole race were cannibals, was confirmed by an acci- 
dent, through which we were nearly deprived of the 
inestimable life of our most enterprising and worthy 
commander. As strangers to the soil, it was particu- 
larly our wish, as well as that of the authorities we 
represented, to reconcile our visits to the natives ; and 
accordingly our highly beloved friend, with his prover- 
bial resolution, consented to take the office upon himself. 
Intending, by way of conciliation, to chuck the young 
of the Sculler under its chin, the juvenile savage at 
once assured us of his anthropophigical propensity, by 
making a snap at the fingers of the honorable secretary, 



188 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

and, what was more horrible, at those of his favorite 
hand. Fortunately, the prompt assistance of myself, 
and the rest of the party, prevented its carrying its 
sanguinary wish into execution, and we had the gratifi- 
cation of preserving a life so dear to his country, so in- 
estimable in the discovery of science, and the starching 
of calico for cravat stiffeners. 

<c After reference to our geographical charts, we took 
our seats in our stanhopes, being preceded by our tra- 
velling chariots, a detachment of the Lancers, by way 
of security, two interpreters, a guide, and a surgeon, 
in case of casualties. By the instructions of the guide 
we steered in a direction N.E.E., and as we proceeded 
farther into the country, the barbarity and unciviliza- 
tion became more apparent. Crossing a swamp called 
the Strand, we arrived at a native settlement called 
Drury Lane, inhabited by a horde infinitely more bar- 
barous and rude than the tribe by which we were ac- 
costed on landing. The indigites of this soil, in fero- 
city of appearance, exceeded all our previous idea of 
savage life. They are generally tattooed, but the 
crevices in their skin, instead of variegated colors as the 
savages of the South Seas, seemed to be filled up by a 
composition much resembling dirt. They had, how- 
ever, no tomahawks, nor implements of a warlike de- 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 189 

scription, nor were any of them dressed in skins ; al- 
though some of them had the hide of a beast hanging 
from their waist downwards, which appeared their only 
covering, and we understand is called by them — leathern 
apron. 

ce Passing by a native wigwam, which we found in 
our maps denned as Vinegar Yard, we were surrounded 
by a motley and terrific group of the inhabitants, both 
male and female. Of their sex we were in great doubt, 
especially of those who carried on their heads a kind 
of wicker basket, in which were a quantity of fish, of 
whose genus our naturalist declared himself perfectly 
ignorant. As we had often heard of the simplicity of 
man when undefiled by a knowledge of the world, of 
his hospitality, and his overflowing milk of human 
kindness, and feeling besides exhausted from the length 
and difficulties of our journey, we determined upon 
putting these fabled attributes to the proof. Holding 
up his stick, as an emblem of peaceable intentions, and 
backed by the Lancers, our interpreter advanced, and 
inquired for the hut of their chief, and requested, as 
we were much exhausted, they would oblige us with a 
small quantity of their ava, and a few of their native 
yams. As they seemed unable to detect his meaning, 
which we endeavoured to make more palpable, by all 



190 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

of us at the same time advancing, simultaneously put- 
ting our fingers down our mouths, and rubbing our 
stomachs, in order to have our urgent necessities im- 
mediately gratified. 

" Instead of our wants having been anticipated, as 
we had naturally supposed, the whole tribe immedi- 
ately set up a discordant yell. Believing that we were 
still misunderstood, we resolved on asking for food, and 
assuring them of our peaceable intentions in all the 
languages we were masters of. One of the Lancers who 
had, during foreign service, picked up a few expressions 
of the Cherokee Indians, and also a knowledge of their 
habits, proposed addressing them. A consultation being 
held, and the result being favorable, he advanced 5 and 
in the Cherokian language asked for food, invoking at 
the same time the great spirit, which he did by spitting 
on his hands (an Indian custom), and holding up his 
right foot for the purpose of his auditor kissing it, as a 
token of conciliation. The person whom he addressed, 
in an uncouth, but certainly melodious language, an- 
swered in these words : 

fc ' Dom hew-er hies, gie us none o' hew-er -jaw.* 

* These remarkable words have been submitted to the attention 
of the Royal Academicians of the Literary Society ; who, after 
several meetings, have come to a decision, that they are deriva- 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 191 

" Another, whom I had willingly entreated in my 
native tongue for a place of shelter, answered in the 
following couplet, which convinced me of the truth of 
the supposition of Mr. Thomas Campbell, the intended 
lecturer of poetry to the London University, that man- 
kind in an aboriginal state is essentially poetical, and 
express their ideas either in rhythmical or figurative 
language — 

" Hax hay -bout, 
Aii find it hout. 

" Others shouted with a peculiar strength of lungs, 
Bedlam ! Bedlam ! ha ! ha ! These words appeared 
to b6 instantly caught up by the surrounding groups, 
and communicated like wild-fire amongst the different 
tribes, winch by this time had increased to an alarming 
magnitude. Horror struck — the idea entered our minds, 
that the war whoop had been sounded, and, as we 
actually saw many scalping knives in the hands of the 
barbarians, we concluded we should be brutally massa- 
cred. Resigning ourselves to the protection of Provi- 
dence, we breathed a short and hurried prayer, be- 
seeching that, if we fell a sacrifice to the blood- 

tive from the Teutonic, and that they express a peculiar invocation 
to, or denunciation of, the eyes of the party addressed, with a re- 
quest that he will refrain from further speaking. 



192 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

thirsty savages, and were roasted and eaten alive, our 
widows and fatherless babes might meet with pro- 
tectors, who would also see what remained of our bones 
decently interred. Scarce had we risen after the de- 
livery of this prayer, when one of the female barbarians, 
with a wild ferocity gleaming from her eyes, and a grin 
which spoke the darkness of her intent, swore by Jingo 
(the name we understand of the idol they worship) 
that she would have a c buss.' Seizing upon our right 
honorable leader, who is of a small and particularly 
delicate make, she uttered aloud, that he was ' so 
spick and span, and so nice a tit-bit, she could eat 
him/ By the savage glee with which she strained him 
in her arms, and the awful extension of her jaws, we 
presumed she was about to carry her threat into exe- 
cution, for, when the tremendous gulph was opened, 
our beloved secretary did not seem to be above a re- 
spectable mouthful ! Advancing as near as we dare ap- 
proach, with tears in our eyes, we bade him adieu, and 
conjured him to deliver his dying request, solemnly 
promising that, should one of us escape to be the sur- 
vivor, he should carry it to his widow. At this instant, 
our commander uttered a piercing cry of agony, on the 
she-dragon applying her lips to his face, as the ana- 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 193 

conda is said to lick her victim over ere she gorges 
him ; whether it was this shriek, or the natural caprice 
of her sex, we have to thank for his emancipation from 
her bloody talons, we know not, but she released him, 
without any further outrage than barbarously disar- 
ranging the tie of his neck-cloth. Having secured 
ourselves against the perpetration of any further atro- 
city, by a rapid flight, we returned thanks to the 
power that had preserved to us our beloved leader. 
Arriving at a settlement, marked out in the maps as 
Great Russell Street, the marks of civilization became 
more apparent, particularly when we saw a native ap- 
proaching in shoes, stockings, and a bona Jlde pair of 
breeches ; but our surprise was increased on reaching 
the place of our destination, ' Russell Square/ to find 
very few traces of savage life, and a wigwam of con- 
siderable extent erected in close imitation of our be- 
loved and long- lost homes ! 

<c Having stopped at a house which had the appearance 
of being inhabited by a civilized being, our interpreter, 
in the patois of the country, requested we might be ad- 
mitted inside, for the sole purpose of judging of the 
manners and customs of foreign nations. The creature 
who received our request was habited much after the 

K 



194 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

same fashion as our footmen, only the wretch, as if to put 
his uncivilization beyond a doubt, actually wore white 
cotton stockings, and his hair without powder. Being 
shown up stairs, we entered a room of considerable di- 
mensions, and our astonishment may be more easily 
conceived than expressed, on our finding instead of 
naked beings, squatted cross-legged on mats on the 
floor, we found them decently attired, and sitting up- 
right in most Christian-like and indubitable chairs. 
The master of the house, a short, fat, and for a savage, 
an apparently inoffensive man, having by no means a 
blood-thirsty appearance, made us welcome according 
to the fashion of the country, which he did by the fol- 
lowing ceremony : — Placing himself about half a yard 
before us, with both sets of his toes so drawn in as to nearly 
meet, one of his hands being stuck where his breeches 
pocket should be placed, he ducked his head and shoul- 
ders (as if he would make a bow), at the same time 
drawing one of his feet from the other, and scraping it 
on the floor ; this accomplished, he resumed his former 
position, muttered some unintelligible words, which 
sounded like g perdigiously happy/ tucked up the collar 
of his shirt (for the wretch actually wore one), and 
stalked away. 



THE UNKNOWN REGION, 195 

ec It is needless to say that we were regarded with 
symptoms of infinite astonishment by the natives, with 
whom the room was filled, and who appeared to be 
mimicking the manners of civilized life, and often call- 
ing out words, which we have since understood to be 
names of liquids peculiar to the country, viz. — e port/ 
f sherry,' and c lemonade/ Our curiosity being amply 
gratified, the short fat native, who had first addressed 
us, marched up to me, and to my indescribable alarm 
offered to introduce me to his daughter, a young savage 
of about seventeen, who he pointed out sitting in a 
nearly civilized attitude on a legitimate sofa. Perceiving 
me shudder at the proposal, for I had heard that the 
New Zealanders, and other barbarous tribes, sometimes 
eat their friends, as well as their enemies, he inquired 
of me the cause, and fearful of the consequence of ex* 
citing the anger of these savages while in their power, 
I expressed my total willingness to the introduction, 
and declared that my only objection was, lest she should 
scratch ; upon his assuring me she was perfectly tame, 
I consented to be led (though like a lamb to the 
slaughter) to the couch, praying most fervently, though 
silently, she would not make a meal of me. What was 
my horror when the short fat gentleman addressed her 

k2 



] 96 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

with a horrid wink of the eye— < Poppett, as I know 
you to be partial to these smart young fellows (Hea- 
vens ! she was then addicted to cannibalism), I have 
brought you one.' I heard no more, but making up 
my mind I was to be served up for supper, flew with 
the utmost rapidity my stays would permit me, when 
my ears were electrified at the sounds of Stultz and 
Xugee. I knew not how it was, but the hearing of 
these words, surrounded as I was by doubt and danger, 
calmed at once my agitated spirits, like some well re- 
membered air which we have heard in our infancy, 
stealing over the waste of years and distance, I felt 
completely overcome by my feelings. Home, and my 
native land, with a thousand sweet associations of rela- 
tives, and all the charms of friendship and love, seemed 
to accompany the sounds, and I gazed with unqualified 
mildness on the innocent source of my happiness, who 
stood gazing in simple wonder at my ill-suppressed sur- 
prise. I was nearly fainting, and should have fallen, 
had it not been for a kind-hearted squaw in a satin slip, 
and blond trimmings, bathing my temples with a 
grateful distillation of otto of roses. The natural re- 
serve of my disposition having been overcome by the 
force of nature, I proposed to our entertainer, if he 



THE UNKNOWN REGION. 197 

would part with his daughter, to take her back with us, 
and make her a member of the civilized world. He 
shook his head, and declared his inability to relinquish 
her ; so great do we find the force of parental affection 
even in savage life ; but upon the approach of his son, 
an eligible and ductile youth, with a promising pair of 
whiskers, and irreproachable pantaloons, he consented 
to part with him, declaring that next to his daughter he 
was the only solace of his life. As the youth bore the 
name of his tribe, the semi-barbarous cognomen of 
Simpson, he agreed to accept of that of Lee boo, not only 
as being more civilized, but expressive of his situation. 
As he was of an ambitious nature, he had made, un- 
known to his parent, many excursions towards the west ; 
we therefore agreed to accept of him as our guide ; and 
we left our simple and promising friends with the as- 
surance of a speedy return : as a pledge, we exchanged 
one of our cravats, well stiffened, and with the Petersham 
tie, for one of the collars worn by the male, and a flounce 
of the she-savage's petticoats; promising also to send 

them, on our arrival, a pattern of Lord H h 5 s 

beard, which approached nearer to savage life than any 
other object we could then think of in the civilized 
world. 



198 THE UNKNOWN REGION. 

' c We reached Connaught Place without any accident, 
with the young savage as a trophy, and received the 
most affectionate welcome on our unexpected and safe 
return. Prayers were put up the following day at most 
of the fashionable churches, and a solemn te deum was 
composed expressly for the occasion. The young savage 
has already realized the expectation we formed of his 
docility and capacity ; already he speaks our language 
equal to a native — has run through the whole of his 
property — keeps race horses — and has an opera singer 
under his protection — never pays a bill, and is admitted 
without a voucher at every hell in the metropolis : has 
forgot his father's name, and never hears the unknown 
region of c Russell Square' mentioned, but he inquires — 
* if that is not the place where the people drink porter, 
and don't wear shoes and stockings ?' " 



MY BIRTH-DAY= 



And can it be my birth- day, this ? 

The day which in my boyish years, 
Came like an April beam of bliss, 

Let in upon life's vale of tears ? 
Is this the same bright day of love and joy ? 
And, oh ! should thoughts like these that happy day 
employ ? 

I then was the too favor' d child, 

Of those whom 'tis not mine to blame ; 

Yet had they been less weakly mild, 
The woes that with my manhood came, 

Would have been more relenting, or unfelt ; 

For then this heart so soon had never learnt to melt. 

I stood for a brief dizzy time, 

Exalted in my youth's first pride; 
But my bold spirit, in its prime, 

Fell with the earliest hope that died, 



200 MY BIRTH-DAY. 

And I was left,, self-doom' d and self-abased,, 
To sigh after the shade I had so vainly chased. 

I am scarce yet of manhood's age, 

And yet am aged in my woe ; 
I have felt passions in me rage, 

And meaner follies lay me low ; 
And whatsoe'er of good or ill there be 
On earth, is as a tale more than twice told to me. 

But let my spirit from its sleep 

Waken and work while yet 'tis day; 

For man was never born to weep, 
And sigh and languish life away : 

It is a gem which, howsoe'er bereft, 

Has worth and beauty still, in every fragment left. 



Tlate VI. 




FLIGHTS IN THE AIR.* 



For breaking the head of an exciseman, emptying a 
thimble-full of whiskey, or handling a shillelagh, go 
from Lough Swilly to Cape Clear, and you would not 
meet with a likelier lad than Daniel O'Rourke. Not a 
christening, wake, or wedding, but what bore witness 
to Dan's prowess in all these indispensable qualifi- 
cations of a polite Irishman ; and woe to the head or 
barrel (no matter which) of him who disputed either. 
Dan was indeed a prince of a fellow, or, as the girls 
swore, " a jontleman every inch of him ;** but it is a 
melancholy fact, that human nature and perfection are 
far from being synonimous, and that the wisest and best 
of us have our faults, and Dan had a trifling one. The 
fact, if the truth must be known, was, that Dan loved a 



* Daniel O'Rourke's flight to the moon has been the subject of 
various legends and tales : that of Mr. Croker's, in his " Fairy Le- 
gends of the South of Ireland," appears to be the greatest favorite ; 
and to which the author is indebted for his information of Dan's 
introduction to the eagle in the earlier part of the narrative. 

k5 



202 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

drop of mountain- dew to his life; a bottle of whiskey, 
and every thing to him had the same meaning. In the 
hour of woe, it was his bodily and spiritual comforter, 
and heightened the enjoyment of his festive moments ; 
in a word, it was his panacea. It must not be omitted 
to mention, that Dan was a " nate one" at shaking a 
loose leg at a neighbour's wedding, and there was none 
like him at brown paper and vinegar in binding up the 
sconce of a fallen comrade ; for Dan, in the true spirit 
of Irish friendship, would split his last potatoe with you 
one minute, and, "all for love," as he would con- 
solingly tell you, split your head in the next. 

The tenor of a man of Cork's life, in general, runs 
smooth enough. Eating, drinking, fighting, and kiss- 
ing, are its component parts, and as long as he leaves 
the Orangemen and White Boys alone, he has a safe 
chance of keeping sorrow at a respectful distance. Dan 
had very few troubles of his own ; but, as he would oc- 
casionally feelingly observe, he had a wife to compensate 
him for their loss ; and sometimes he would feel rather 
pensive at the sight of the bottom of his cask, but his 
only care was how to get it filled again — at whose ex- 
pense did not give him any uneasiness. To be sure, 
when he had been indulging too freely, Mrs. CRourke 



PLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 203 

was apt to remind him of it, in a way rather unpleasant 
to his feelings ; but Dan took it in good part, and devil 
of a bit did he relish his potatoe the worse for the 
scolding by which it was generally accompanied. Still 
the dignity of the historian obliges me to confess, that 
Dan would rather have encountered half a dozen boys 
from Tipperary, any day in the week, than a little 
member which occasionally showed itself between the 
teeth of his darling Biddy ; but, 'though probably no 
reader of Kit Marlowe, he comforted himself with the 
assurance of that ancient dramatist, that 

"All women's tongues are tortures unto men." 

Death had just laid low ORourke's old comrade, 
Teddy O'Toologan, than whom, as he, upon hearing of 
the sad event, with his usual propriety of diction, de- 
clared — " there was not, in the county of Cork, another 
better behaved boy, alive and kicking/' Was it possible, 
therefore, that he could refuse an invitation which the 
afflicted Mrs. OToologan gave him, to make one at the 
defunct's wake ? Thither he bent his pensive steps, and 
in the Irish jig and the Irish howl, no one went before 
him. So great was our hero's affliction, that he could 
not demonstrate it better than by getting most devoutly 



204 



FLIGHTS IN THE AIK. 



drunk ; which he did, to the unequivocal satisfaction of 
every gentle soul present. 

It was a dreary long way that OKourke had to go 
home, through bog, bramble, and mire, and the first 
puddle he came to told him that his heels were con- 
siderably cooler than his head -, but, putting his best leg 
foremost, he defied, in genuine Irish (for fear he should 
be overheard), Death, the Devil, and the Exciseman. 

"Now be asy, can't you?" said Dan to himself, as 
one of his legs sank knee deep into a bog, and the 
other made instant preparation to follow its example. 
" Is it for the leg of a respectable Irish jontieman to 
get drunk after this rate?" as he gave the refractory 
limb a good-humored tap with his shillelagh. ** Oh ! 
you baste, what will the illigant Mrs. O'Rourke say, 
when you walk home with me in the morning ?" The 
thought of his wife very naturally carried with it a 
sedative effect, and Dan, sinking a little deeper into the 
bog, began to nod 

" At the winking stars." 



His slumbers were long before the dawn awakened hy 
a huge rustling of feathers under his nose, and upon 
opening one of his eyes (for the other his loving cousin. 



FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 205 

Dennis Flatheray, had closed by an affectionate appli- 
cation of his fist at parting), he' beheld by his side a 
reverend eagle of a particularly grave and gentleman- 
like demeanor. 

" The top of the morning to your aygleship," was the 
first salutation of Dan, who, in his polite waggery, 
forgot it was barely midnight. 

u A fine evening, Mr. ORourke," replied the eagle, 
in very excellent Irish; "I hope Mrs. OR. and all the 
little ones are well." — "Fait, an' is it yourself that 
would spake, and in as proper as English as ever was 
spoken in Ireland ?" 

The eagle politely inclined his beak, and continued — 
" Excuse my freedom, but you appear to have taken a 
drop too much ! 'pon honor, you are really in a devil of 
a pickle." — "The same to you, sir, and all your family/' 
cried Dan in return, too much fuddled to wonder at 
even an eagle's banter. 

" Hark ye, my worthy friend, would you not like to 
be safely lodged in your comfortable cabin ?" — " Ah ! 
your honor knows my secret thoughts." — " Well, well, 
Daniel, all you have to do, is to get safe on my back, 
and merrily, cheerily, we'll go."— "An' sure enough, 



206 FLIGHTS IN THE AIS, 

would it be a dacent thing for a respectable man like 
Daniel ORourke, who goes to mass as riglar as clock- 
work, never makes a baste of himself (a slight hiccup 
en-passa,7it) } to be seen riding home on a Sunday morn* 
ing on a rip of a bird like yourself?" — "Pooh, pooh, 
Daniel, never mind what the world says, put your left 
hand between my wings, and cock one of your legs 
across the middle of my back, and we shall soon be 
above it; never mind my feathers being rough, my 

d d rascal never curried me this morning ; 1 11 

pluck his feathers, when I get back, with a vengeance." 
As the eagle appeared such a civil spoken bird, upon 
his extending one of his claws to help him out of the 
bog, Dan made no more ado, but immediately mounted. 
Hardly had his kind friend spread his wings, ere he 
found out that he had taken his seat the wrong way, 
with his face towards the eagle's tail ; upon which the 
bird good-naturedly observed — "Excuse me, but can 
you make it convenient to get a little lower down ? 
your legs are quite in the way of my wings ; just shift 
yourself to a spot delicacy forbids me to mention, and 
you will be amazed to find how comfortable you will 
ride/' Dan did as he was bade, and seizing hold of the 



FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 207 

ample tail, in less than a second, found he was scower- 
ing through the air, at the rate of twenty miles a 
minute. 

u Here we go up, up," 
merrily ehaunted the eagle, 

" And here we go down, down," 
half hiccupped and half quavered O'Rourke ; for what 
with the liquor he had drank, and the fluctuating course 
of his ride, his senses began strongly to wander. The 
city of Cork he declared to his companion had got 
drunk, for it reeled about in a vastly odd manner; 
lakes, mountains, bogs, and plains, seemed to be en- 
joying a family jig, for all appeared dancing and tum- 
bling about in the oddest and most heterogeneous 
manner possible. 

The king of the air, who probably was a better judge 
of these matters than his rider, hallooed in rather an 
imperious tone — " Seize fast hold of my tail, or I shall 
drop you as dead as a herring into Dungarvon Bay/' 
Poor ORourke, too much frightened to do any thing 
but obey, seized fast of the feathered extremity, while 
one of his legs reposed on his patron's back, and the 
other dangled in the air, as if both were on contrary 
scents. They had now arrived at a considerable height^ 



208 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

and the pureness of the air, in some degree, blew off 
the clouds of mystification which darkened our voyager's 
brain. He now, to his wonder, saw every thing as 
through a microscope. The mighty Glendeeloch looked 
not much larger than a thimble; the ancient pile of 
Carrigaphooka resembled more than any thing else a 
diminutive mouse trap ; it would have been a difficult 
matter to have drowned a respectable rat in Bantry Bay ; 
and even Tkoumuldeeshig's plain was not capacious 
enough for a select party of the ci good people"* to play 
a game of skittles on. 

" Arrah, my sowl, if it is'nt your honor getting on 
at a queer rate ; what the divil is to become of poor 
Daniel ORourke, should the baste — I beg your honor's 
pardon, I meant yourself — make a false step ?" 

"Why, my good friend, I calculate you would, at 
this elevation, have a fall of five thousand seven hun- 
dred feet," coolly replied the eagle, at the same time 
taking a pinch of snuff from a pouch under his left 
wing. 

" The divil burn me" " Hush, hush," said the 

eagle ; " no swearing on my back, if you please ; we 

* Fairies Hibernice. 






FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 209 

are now hovering over Cape Finisterre, in a few seconds 
we shall pass the Straits of Gibraltar., into which, you 
may rely upon it, you shall tumble, without you keep 
a guard over your discourse: no more of your filthy, 
low Irish, I beg of you ; I hate brogue as I do a musket 
ball." 

Dan, who upon his first getting out of the bog, it 
being a clear frosty December night, had felt rather 
cold and stiff, upon passing the tropic of Cancer, began 
most bitterly to grumble at the heat ; the eagle, upon 
this, for so pacific a bird, swore a most tremendous oath, 
and declared he would drop him into the Red Sea, or else 
unceremoniously leave him on the top of Ararat, by 
way of cooling him. Poor ORourke found he was so 
completely in the gentleman's power, that the best 
thing he could do, was to keep his tongue between his 
teeth ; so civilly inquiring of the bird of Jove, when it 
was his honor's intention to breakfast, he was comforted 
with the assurance, that as soon as they reached the 
Andes, which were only a thousand leagues distant, it 
was his intention to stop, having to stand godfather to 
a young eaglet, and a family party waiting till he had 
arrived for a jollification. As Dan knew the value of 
his accomplishments in this intellectual amusement, he 



210 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

felt his spirits get up a hundred per cent. " Saint 
Patrick, forsake me," gaily cried he, as he tightly 
squeezed the eagle's tail, " if they give me but a drap 
o' the krater, if I don't dance an Irish jig, or shake a 
shillelagh, with all your rev 'rence's uncles, and cousins, 
I'll be" "No profane swearing," once more ex- 
claimed the Olympian bird. 

To make short of a terrible long journey, the travel- 
lers arrived at the Cordilleras, the bleak air of which 
blew over their summits, and made Dan cuddle himself 
as comfortably as he could in his companion's feathers, 
till the latter graciously signified his intention of alight- 
ing on the nearest mountain, which happened to be 
Chimboroza. He had scarcely touched the surface of 
the snow-clad apex, ere he quietly disengaged himself 
from ORourke, and lodged him gently in a bed of snow, 
gaily exclaiming — " Good morrow, Mr. O'Rourke ; you 
see I have provided you with a lodging, and a soft bed 
in the bargain. You must excuse my taking you with 
me to breakfast ; ours is quite a family party — sorry, 
'pon honor, I can't introduce." 

" Arrah ! the divil, and all the other holy saints, you 
big baste, and is this the way you would sarve a re- 
spectable gentleman of the county of Cork ? bad luck to 






FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 211 

you, you good for nothing varment, and all your hook- 
nosed family." 

Luckily for Dan, he had not long to meditate over 
his forlorn condition, compared to which even the tongue 
of Mrs. O'Rourke was a bagatelle, ere he beheld his cruel 
tormentor returning from his morning call, sailing ma- 
jestically over the head of the mighty Chimboroza. As 
the king of the air made a full swoop upon the luckless 
bog-trotter, a grin of the most un amiable description 
widened his beak. " Plase your rev'rence, show a little 
marcy upon a poor turf-cutter, who you took warm and 
snug from a comfortable bog an hour and a half ago, to 
leave on this here undacent mountain top." 

The ill-natured wretch, however, approached him 
only for the sake of indulging in a satirical laugh, 
and again spread his wings, and soared towards the 
clouds, which seemed bending towards them. " Fire 
and potheen!" thundered out Dan; "if I am to 
be done after a fashion like this by an ugly son of your 
mother:" and making a vigorous spring, he rendered 
apparent to the eagle his acknowledged reputation of 
being " a cute lad," by catching hold of one of the gen- 
tleman's legs ; who, after making a desperate attempt 



212 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

to shake liim off, soared away, as if once more bearing 
the thunders of the son of Saturn, Dan keeping his 
hold, and hanging from the leg of the bird like the su- 
pernumerary jacket of a hussar officer. Away they go : 
soon they sever through the clouds, which were but a 
few moments before suspended above them ; rushing 
through the curtains of heaven with the daring freedom 
of an acknowledged guest, earth is lost to their ken, 
and all above, beneath, and around them is one vast and 
illimitable chaos. Here and there some solitary lu- 
minary, wasting its pale and silvery light, revolved 
like a ball of pure flame on its invisible axis ; beds of 
stars like streams of light, and rivers of molten silver, 
ran through the gauzy furniture of the skies, reflecting, 
from their unfathomable abysses, the certainties of 
wondrous and countless worlds ; but O'Rourke, the 
most meditative part of whose life was the getting over 
of the effects of a previous night's debauch, had, as it 
may be suspected, but a very limited taste for the sub- 
lime and beautiful. Higher and higher mounted the 
eagle, and tighter and tighter grasped the Hibernian, 
till a full and powerful light so dazzled his one eye, 
that it speedily imitated its brother in misfortune, by 



FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 213 

closing its fringed curtains ; and whither the flapping 
wings of the eagle were going, he remained in the most 
innocent and unconscious ignorance. 

Upon exerting his circumscribed power of vision, he 
found himself surrounded by what appeared one vast 
ocean of light, frozen into a dazzling and splendid sub- 
stance. " My good friend," said the eagle, being the 
first civil words he had spoken for the last hour, " we 
are arrived at the moon, and here, if you inquire for 
the Rising Sun, you will meet with very excellent ac- 
commodation $ the morning air, I have no doubt, has 
given you a glorious appetite for breakfast." With this 
parting advice, and wrenching his leg with an un- 
deniable force from the despairing energy of the un- 
lucky bog-trotter, downwards he sailed, and soon to the 
sight looked a respectable earwig. 

Dan being left to himself found he was rolling away 
with a prodigious velocity, on a slippery surface, which 
appeared like the exterior of an immense globe, keep- 
ing continually revolving. Over and over he rolled, till 
he found himself tumbling from an immense height, and 
as he fell, his sides assured him that he was grazing 
against a rocky mountain. Falling, falling, he at last 
seemed to dash through a sky-light,, and ere he could 



214 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

ascertain the fact, to his utter amazement, he found 
himself plumped into a dish of warm liquor, round 
which a circle of grotesque looking beings were saying 
grace, as if about to take their morning repast. 

It need scarcely be said, that the surprise of both 
parties was equal, when O'Rourke feeling what ap- 
peared to be a three-pronged fork stuck into his sides, 
started up out of the breakfast material in which he had 
been so unexpectedly soused, and, as the liquid streamed 
from his twisted locks, saluted them in a genuine brogue 
with — " By the powers, you ugly childer of the divil's 
own mother, and is this your way of giving pot luck to 
a benighted traveller, who has just dropped in by ac- 
cident ?" 

" A miracle, a miracle \" cried a reverend-looking 
gentleman, having an owl's head with ass's ears, and 
cloven feet, whom Daniel subsequently discovered to be 
an ecclesiastical dignitary. 

" An action of trespass — quare id clausum-fregit — 
vi et armis — contra pacem, will lie with special damage 
for breaking the sky-light," followed an equally grave 
animal, with a hawk's beak and a ferret's eye, and an 
appendage hanging from a black robe like a fox's tail, 
which he wagged with unequivocal satisfaction. 



PLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 215 

u An incident, an incident !" roared a blue looking 
wretch, in the form of a weazel ,* " what a charming 
situation for my next series of " Tales of the Hideous 
and the Horrible \" 

Poor O'Rourke, in the ignorance of the language in 
which these observations were made, and from the greedy 
looks which the half human and half brutal party cast 
upon him, imagined that he was about to be cut up to 
pieces by way of a relish for their respective breakfasts. 
His fears seemed realized, and he felt perfectly con- 
vinced it was all over with him, when he beheld a very 
large beast with bristles in his face, and having a hand- 
some pair of horns branching out of his head (who he 
afterwards discovered to be an alderman), distend his 
jaws to such an extraordinary compass as to threaten 
instant destruction. However, it pleased the worshipful 
brute only to signify the state of his mind by a long and 
continued grunt, by way of a response to the grace 
which had been so abruptly terminated on ORourke's 
sudden appearance, the words of which, no doubt, were 
the old, and for its brevity much approved, supplication — 
' ' For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make 
us truly thankful." 

The alarm of the morning visitor, and the amaze- 



216 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

ment of his beholders, having partly diminished, he got 
as well as he could out of the breakfast bowl, and began 
to shake himself with the coolness and deliberation of a 
water spaniel after a good ducking. This ceremony 
had scarcely been concluded, when an animal, of the 
appearance of an overgrown calf, though with the ad- 
dition of an immense wig, a professor's gown, and a pair 
of spectacles, advanced to our adventurous friend, and, 
in a language which the latter felt "sartain was all 
moonshine," politely bowed, and said — "May I be 
allowed to examine your bumps ?" Without further 
ceremony, many of O'Rourke's superfluous locks were 
severed from his battered skull, upon which the pro- 
fessor's paw got exceedingly busy making discoveries. 

"Benevolence! Benevolence!" were his first de- 
lighted accents, as he pointed to a bump, which our 
hero had received in part payment of a score of ditto, 
paid on the cranium of an outrageous Orangeman at the 
last Clonekilty fair. " Amativeness and conjugal love !" 
was the result of an elevation caused by a poker, which 
the gentle Mrs. O'Rourke occasionally exercised, in 
upholding the dignity of her sex. u Adhesiveness !" as 
he felt a lump of the bog, which had taken up its 
quarters on Dan's crown. " Inhabitiveness !" shrieked 



FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 2l7 

a female voice, the professor retreating a few steps 
backward, as he proceeded a little further with his dis- 
coveries — not doubting but what feeling was believing 
as well as seeing. 

ORourke, who never showed his teeth, till he knew 
what sort of customers he had to deal with, had re- 
mained tolerably passive during this curious examina- 
tion ; but even an Irishman's patience may become ex- 
hausted, and he began to whistle, with an alarming 
vehemence, u Moll Roe in the morning ;** when the in- 
spector shouted, " destructiveness I" as he placed his 
forefoot under our hero's ear, and, without waiting for 
another syllable, the whole party took to their legs and 
wings. The weazel crept between the legs of the 
parson, who was the first to fly; the lawyer sneaked 
off, and the professor caught fast hold of his tail ; while 
the poor alderman, in a vain attempt to waddle to the 
door, fell prostrate at the threshold, and over his un- 
fortunate carcase the whole of the enlightened assembly, 
cackling, lowing, screaming, hooting, and bellowing, 
passed, leaving their newly received visitor to form the 
best opinion he could of them. 

In explanation of this wonderful scene it need scarcely 
be said, that the man of Cork had dropped into another 

L 



218 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

world — that of the moon. The odd-looking beings he 
found to be, subsequently, the inhabitants, the forms of 
whose bodies were indebted to those parts of the brutal 
creation which they most resembled in mind ; differing 
from the human creation of a planet with which he was 
more intimately acquainted in external appearance only 
— the mixture of man and brute unfortunately, of whose 
nature being not so readily distinguished by sight. 

Had any other traveller but ORourke the opportunity 
here afforded him, the world (we mean our own) would 
have been enlightened by a brace of quartos, entitled — 
" Notes of a Journey to, and temporary Residence in, the 
Moon ; containing a Full Account of the Laws, Manners, 
and Customs of that most interesting World." But un- 
lucky Dan was invariably brief in his descriptions ; he 
only remembered sufficient to tell his wondering hearers, 
upon his return, that he had been taught the dozen 
languages of the moon, by a professor of the Hamil- 
tonian system, who took upon himself the whole merit 
of the discovery, by declaring that the new mode was 
first taught in the moon ; and that it was impossible it 
could be successful any where else. 

His accounts of the classification of the different in- 
habitants were unfortunately very confused ; and being 






FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 219 

strict admirers of veracity, we have rejected those por- 
tions of his narrative which appear visionary or ima- 
ginative. The population appeared principally to con- 
sist of a motley groupe of birds, beasts, and fish: for 
instance, he detected politicians by the different attri- 
butes of a spaniel and vulture ; lawyers bore a family 
likeness to sharks ; priests had the benevolent and meek 
form of sheep, although Dan could not help remarking 
they had many black-legs among them. He was as- 
tonished at finding the strong resemblance which many 
of the nobility bore to the first born of Judy, his 
favorite three-year-old short-horn; and, upon making 
inquiries of a pensive looking dromedary, whether there 
were such beings as Mrs. ORourke in the world, he 
felt considerably surprised at being referred to a large 
flock of geese, which were cackling on a common, near 
the principal city. The military portion of the in- 
habitants he found remarkable for nothing, saving the 
extraordinary length of their ears. 

His only visit to the courts of law, was during an 
important trial brought by a carrion crow against a 
magpie, for calling him " black-legs and gallows bird/' 
Upon the verdict being given, with enormous damages 
to the plaintiff, for the wound which his feelings and 

l 2 



220 FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 

reputation had received, O c Rourke inquired the best 
plan of leaving a world, which, bad as his own un- 
doubtedly was, he did not think altogether any better ; 
being referred to a newly-established joint-stock com- 
pany, he found the safest and most expeditious manner 
of travelling, was to be rammed into a mortar, and shot 
through a moveable tunnel, by means of a fourteen 
pounder, the last invention of a member of the Luna- 
rian " Mechanics' Institute." 

From the style of our voyager's arrival at this won- 
derful globe, it may be expected that he was not over 
delicate in his inquiries respecting the safety of his re- 
turn. A learned society having fixed the relative posi- 
tion which Dan's cabin, at Ballynarooga, in the county 
of Cork, bore to his present situation in the moon, fixed 
the spot where the tunnel was to be placed, and by a 
gentle application of steam, the mortar was instantane- 
ously charged with our hero and his leaden companion: 
and both, in three quarters of an hour, five minutes, 
and twenty seconds, were shot upon the dear little 
dung-hill, opposite his own cabin door. 

As it was not yet sun-rise, Dan, with all the delicate 
sensibility of a husband and a father, disliked disturb- 
ing his family at so early an hour, and therefore deter- 






FLIGHTS IN THE AIR. 221 

mined to finish his nap where he was. In the course 
of his slumbers, the gabbling of the geese still appeared 
to ring upon his ears ; but, upon opening his eyes, how 
great was his satisfaction to find all that he had heard 
was nothing more than the morning salutation of Mrs. 
Daniel ORourke. 



THE EYE OP WELCOME. 



I have beheld the summer cloud flash o'er 

The twilight waters gleaming ; I have seen 
The watch-fire glimmering on the long-left shore 

Of my nativity, and mark'd the sheen 
Of morn re-kindling the night-faded green 
Of those dear meadows where my childhood play'd ; 
And fate hath giv'n me once again to look 
On Heav'n's veiTd radiance in the shadowy brook, 
Where oft, in manlier years, pensive I stray' d, 
Till the last roses on its face decay' d : 
But ne'er on sea or shore, mead, stream, or sky, 
Shone aught so lovely as the glistening eye 
That hail'd my wish'd return, and charms me still : 
'Twas lightning sheathed — a beacon blaze, not warn- 
ing, 
But welcoming ; — 'twas dawn, without its chill — 
Eve, with the freshness, and the hope, of morning. 



?LATj. 




THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 



" No sail is on the boat, no oar is at its side, 
Yet over the blue sea swiftly doth it glide, 
While the meteors are dancing 

Across the hoar spray, 
And the ether light glancing 
To point out the way." — 

M.S. In life in death the same. 



L D 






THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 



The enthusiasm of the poet has owned an excitement 
which it never till then knew., and he has felt the in- 
equality of language to feeling, in his first view of the 
Lake of Geneva. On her broad and ample bosom the 
Alps meet with the only mirror capable of reflecting 
their towering grandeur, while the mighty objects 
themselves, in whose dim perspective the power of 
vision seems lost, appear to isolate the beautiful scene 
from the remainder of the world. It was, in former 
times, the favorite recreation of the Genevese, when 
the heat of the day was over, to sail across the lovely 
surface of the lake; and upon a vernal night, when the 
blue arch of Heaven, studded with its innumerable 
stars, was reflected on the bosom of the waters, might 
be seen the barks of the careless citizens bounding 
from shore to shore, their slender sails silvered by the 
moon-beams, and in the distance resembling fallen 
luminaries over the vast space. The tinkling of the 



228 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

guitar,, and the wild melodies of the Pays de Vaud occa- 
sionally arose, even when the skiffs they proceeded 
from were out of the hearer's sight, for the stillness of 
the scene seemed to echo the sound, and give the wild 
notes of the musician the attributes of an enchanter's 
spell. 

It was not uncommon for a female to be seen glid- 
ing alone in a fragile bark ; and when only her voice 
was heard warbling one of the popular airs of her na- 
tive canton, either dwelling on the beauties of the 
surrounding scene, or recounting, in inspiriting verse, 
the glorious deeds of her forefathers, the auditor 
might fancy he heard a voice from the grave of time, 
or that the waters themselves uttered a wild and un- 
earthly melody, till the solitary skiff of the fair sailor 
gently undulated the waves around. 

One passage, however, is shunned by the fair ad- 
venturers, who, as they pass the boundary, cross them- 
selves with devout fervour ; and neither inducement 
nor irony will prevail even on the hardier and more 
fearless sex to suffer their boats to approach the cur- 
rent, between the village of Clase and Geneva, when 
night has cast its shadows over the lake. It need scarcely 
be said, in explanation, that there is some romantic 






THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 229 

legend associated with this part which has the power 
of exciting their terrors. The' popular superstition 
appears to be, that a spirit, in the form of a beautiful 
woman, after a certain hour of night, roves along in a 
small skiff the forbidden passage, enchanting those 
who have the misfortune of hearing her, with strains 
more divine than any which ever issued from lips 
mortal or immaterial, for the unhallowed purpose of 
causing their instant destruction. The spectre is said 
to have once inhabited the form of a daughter of a 
patriot of Geneva, and to have fallen enamoured with 
a young Savoyard, who, after gaining her affections, 
attempted to instil into her mind notions of treason 
against her country, which she consequently was near 
betraying. Indignant at the ungenerous use which he 
had made of her love, and of his subsequent desertion, 
she died, and, after her death, the popular story de- 
clares her to have been seen making the voyage between 
the city and that part of the coast where she had first 
beheld her lover, whose perfidy she revenges by allur- 
ing the rest of his sex, by the melody of her voice, to a 
whirlpool, which was within the enchanted course, and 
in the vortex of which her victims met with immediate 
destruction. 



230 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

The tale was currently believed by the generality of 
the citizens of Geneva; many affected to despise and 
turn it into ridicule,, but even the greatest sceptics 
never gave so effectual a proof of their courage as 
to venture near the current in which the beautiful 
syren was said to harbour. One high-spirited youth 
alone, the son of the Governor of Geneva, is said 
to have dared to explore the mysterious course. In 
despite of a solemn oath, which in an hour of filial 
affection his mother had wrung from him, pledging 
that he would never attempt the forbidden voyage, 
after being irritated by the taunting jeers of his com- 
panions, he swore to sail his skiff from Geneva to 
Clase, along the haunted current, and to tear a lock 
of hair from the head of the spectre lady, should for- 
tune so far favor him as to bring him within the 
sphere of her fascination. Carelessly laughing at the 
consequences, amidst the boisterous shouts of his com- 
panions, and the silent fears of many of them, the gal- 
lant Victor unmoored his light bark, and soon her 
white sail became a speck in the horizon. 

The evening, at the time when he left the shore, was 
beautiful, the queen of the skies was careering in her 
chariot above his head, shedding a favorable light over 



THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 231 

his course; and, as he bounded over the waters,, his 
little skiff seemed to cut her way through a sheet of 
silver. Ere he was out of sight, the face of the hea- 
vens changed, the moon was overshadowed by giant 
storm clouds, and a hoarse muttering wind tra- 
velled over the surface of the lake, which appeared to 
be convulsed by an unusual sensation. These symp- 
toms of external change were viewed with dismal 
forebodings by the party on the shore; and, however 
natural the sudden alteration in the weather might have 
been, their superstitious minds at once imputed it to the 
daring hardihood of their friend, and they returned to 
their homes, contrary to the engagement which they 
had made with Victor, previous to his departure, to 
stay till he returned, under the fullest persuasion that 
he would never upbraid them, at least in this world, 
for their want of faith. 

The storm continued incessantly, and, as the red 
flashes of the lightning illumined the dark surface of 
the water, there appeared a distant object resembling 
a vessel, tossed to and fro by the violence of the 
waves ; upon its disappearance, all hope ceased in the 
breasts of the anxious watchers of ever again behold- 
ing the daring explorer of the mysterious waters. 



232 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

The morning however arrived, and with it, to their 
astonishment, came Victor, who was at the menage 
where the young nobles of Geneva were accustomed to 
meet, and he upbraided them, in terms not over 
courteous, for so cowardly breaking their promise. 
Although a deriding laugh burst from his lips, his 
companions perceived they were colourless and shri- 
velled and his hitherto blooming countenance had a 
shade of darkness spread over it, as if it had been 
recently paralyzed either by horror or excessive emo- 
tion. His buoyant and elastic step was changed to a 
drooping air and nerveless gait, and his thin and hollow 
voice had a tone like the wind, playing through the 
crevices of a sepulchre, and his eyes gleamed with 
a wildness of expression both strange and unearthly — 
his whole aspect was that of a freshly exhumated 
corpse, rather than that of the gay, blooming, and 
spirited son of the Governor of Geneva. As his com- 
panions viewed this marked and awful alteration in a 
countenance and form, which had so often excited their 
jealousy, they eagerly pressed a round him to be in- 
formed of the events of the preceding night. He at 
first evaded the question, by asking their right to in- 
quire, which he haughtily affirmed they had forfeited, 






THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 233 

by not fulfilling their own part of the pledge : he, 
however, before he left the menage, declared that he 
had made the voyage without meeting the object of his 
curiosity, and explained the disorder of his appearance 
from the violent effects of the storm. It did not, how- 
ever, escape the inquisitive eyes of his companions, that, 
when the speaker arrived at that part of the narrative 
whieh denied his meeting with the spectre lady, he 
appeared to be struggling to obtain a command over 
himself, and his countenance whitened even more 
ghastly than before ; and when one of his hearers gaily 
said — <e I suppose then you have not got with you the 
lock of her hair T* he attempted to laugh., but the 
frightful expression of his eyes, and the hissing sounds 
of his breath, startled the group with horror, and they 
drew back, as if he had changed his nature, and had 
assumed attributes of a demoniacal being. His very 
horse, his favorite Jole, reared at his approach, and, 
instead of kneeling to receive him, as was the custom 
of the animal, plunged violently, and was obliged to be 
forcibly held by the rein. 

It was the evident intention of Victor to appear 
careless and indifferent, but his efforts were unavail- 
ing ; his manner was abstracted ; some deep and in- 
tense feeling seemed buried in his heart; and his 



234 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

abrupt start, and vacant stare, whenever he was ad- 
dressed, were sufficient evidence that, whatever might 
have been the events of the night, they had made a 
deep and absorbing impression on his mind. 

Not many hours had elapsed after Victor's return, 
before various tales were circulated over the city of his 
bold and presumptuous voyage. It need not be said, 
that whatever was really strange in his conduct or ap- 
pearance escaped from being exaggerated ; in fact, the 
most extravagant and highly-colored relations were 
told of the event, which soon perforated the walls of 
the citadel, his fathers residence. The Governor, de- 
termined to set at rest the floating rumours which, un- 
willing as he was to confess it, caused considerable dis- 
quiet in his own mind, and exercise his paternal, and 
if it were necessary, his judicial authority, to ascertain 
the truth from the lips of his son himself. Upon in- 
quiry, he found that Victor had, although it was then 
but the middle of the day, retired to rest, under the 
plea of indisposition and excessive fatigue. His mother 
went a short time afterwards into his apartment, and 
as he appeared sunk in the deepest repose, she retired, 
with her mind considerably alleviated. About mid- 
night, however, as her son had been, as she supposed, 
asleep for many hours, her maternal feelings became 



THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 235 

again excited, and she left her own sleeping-room to 
quiet them, when, to her unstfppressed horror, she 
found his chamber empty. The castle was immediately 
alarmed, and instant inquiries were made within its 
walls, but with no effect, till messengers were de- 
spatched to the different gates of the city, from one of 
which it was discovered that the young Count had 
passed, in his way to the borders of the lake, from 
which it was further found, that he had set sail about 
an hour after midnight, in the direction of the mys- 
terious current. The city, before day-break, was in a 
tumult, till it was proclaimed that the Count had re- 
turned safe and uninjured. 

To the mild entreaties of his parents at first, and 
to their subsequent threats, Victor preserved an equal 
silence ; and when the Governor sternly imposed close 
imprisonment of his son, unless he explained the mo- 
tives on his mysterious conduct, the youth retained a 
haughty reserve, and merely stated his readiness to 
undergo any punishment his father might choose to in- 
flict on him. That night he escaped the vigilance of 
his guards, and succeeded in gaining the borders of the 
lake ; — but it is time to lift the curtain from the mys- 
tery which fascinated the young adventurer. 

On the eventful night of the idle boast, which in- 



236 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

duced Victor to brave the threats and taunts of his 
companions, he set sail in the manner before described. 
Highly excited by wine, and jarred with their boiste- 
rous revelry, the soft wind that was blowing over the 
lake, though hardly sufficient to ruffle its surface, cooled 
the warm temperature of his blood, which gradually 
became softened by the beautiful scene around him. 
As the borders of the lake lost themselves in the re- 
ceding distance, and as the last faint sound of the voices 
of his friends on the shore died away, the stars above 
him appeared of a brilliancy he never before witnessed. 
The gentle breeze that wafted him from the shore 
had completely expired, yet his bark, to his surprise, 
made way at a considerable rate, although neither 
swayed by tide nor current. Moved by some strange 
impulse, she cut through the lake, whose waters ap- 
peared more wonderfully transparent than ever ; the 
stars reflected were like so many balls of fire glowing 
in the deep, and he appeared riding on a nether heaven. 
All traces of the shore became invisible from a storm 
which was raging in its neighbourhood, and the far- 
ther he proceeded the greater became the surpassing 
glory of the scene. Thousands of stars were shooting 
from the Heavens, and illumining the mid air with a. 
light far surpassing in brilliancy the rays of the sun ; 



THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 237 

the moon was surrounded with a halo of amazing gran- 
deur, and the water sparkled like a huge sea of liquid 
crista!, with the reflection of the stars which ap- 
peared continually falling on its surface, and glancing 
from its depths. The bark continued to proceed as if 
propelled by an irresistible impulse, till it veered 
round, and all the skill he possessed as a steersman was 
not sufficient to put her on a right tack. At this mo- 
ment all the fearful tales that he had heard of the 
viewless Syren, that was said to haunt this spot, rushed 
on his mind with quick and pauseless array. The 
scene around him was magnificent — it was no longer 
night, nor was it the open glare of day that made every 
object brilliant around him. The sky was of a light 
blue, but so bright as to cause a painful sensation in 
beholding it ; the lake looked like a sea of molten 
diamonds, and the middle regions of air were occupied 
by revolving bodies of light, of a magnitude which the 
highest flights of imagination had never pictured. The 
bark continued to wheel round, till the efforts of Vic- 
tor to urge her forward were interrupted, by what he 
had long ardently anticipated, but mysteriously dreaded. 
It was a strain of music — if that word can convey, 
sotuids which were never heard before in a terrene 
world. No mortal language can convey the softly 



238 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

swelling notes which alternately rose and died away — 
it was not like the gust of the feathered minstrels, nor 
the exquisite touches produced by the finger of art — 
nor the full deep tones of woman's voice, but it had 
all the sweetness of each, without a resemblance to 
either. They rose and inflated his heart, and he sank 
powerless in his skiff, exhausted with the excitement 
of his feeling. Ere he recovered himself a voice met 
his ears, yet more beautiful than woman's, and in a 
tone and language which, although he had never heard 
it before, seemed familiar to him, conveyed feelings to 
his soul, of whose existence he had till then been 
ignorant. 

Yet the master-spring of his feelings was yet to be 
aroused, when, as he looked to see whence the music pro- 
ceeded, he found a skiff by the side of his own. It was 
made of a huge pearl, scooped out by fingers which could 
never have been mortal. The sail was like the silver wing 
of an insect fluttering in the breeze ; but the figure 
which stood at the helm, and from which the music 
evidently proceeded, completed the enchantment. Was 
it an angel or a woman ? — too voluptuous for the one, 
too celestial for mortality ! He gazed as if he would 
gaze his soul away in those eyes which seemed a heaven 
of their own ; lips, that if they wooed to destruction, 



THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 239 

threw flowers in the path, and a form too bright for 
reality, too glorious to belong to the world. While 
under the delusion of the sweet spell that kept his 
reason prisoner, she flung her white arms round the 
prow of the vessel, which had slightly the appearance 
of a stringed instrument, thrilled in a strain which, 
though unknown, fell consciously with a heavenly 
cadence on his fluctuating soul — 

THE SONG OF THE SYREN.' 

" I know thee — I know thee — thou fair-hair'd boy t 

Thou art come to the home of light and joy, 

To the home of each fair and each lovely thing, 

Where the bright flowers blow, and the sweet birds sing ! 

Where the founts are clear as the skies above, 

And the soft wind speaks like whisper'd love ! 

Where the violet breathes on the dawn-lit air, 
Of a spring which never dies ; 

And the asphodel shines as marble fair, 
And the stars like woman's eyes. 
Where the sun-rise is bright, as the sun-set is calm, 
And the silent midnight from her couch of balm 
Heareth naught but the far stream's careless hum — 
To this home of delight, hath thy light bark come. 

* I have no other claim to the above verses than a desire to 
rescue them from an undeserving oblivion. They came into my 
hands accidentally, and I know not even the author's name, nor 
any particulars concerning him, saving that he is not now in existence. 



240 THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 

" I know thee — I know thee — thou fair-hair'd boy ! 
Thou art made for this land of light and joy ; 
The shrill wind and the lashing sea, 
And the foundering skiff—- Oh ! it must not be ; 
Too bright are the treasured beams which lie 
Hid in the depths of thy soft dark eye ; 

Too fair is thy cheek, and the soul too warm 
That speaks through thy parted lips, 

That lives in, that looks from, thy graceful form ; 
And thy spirit of calm that sleeps. 
On the pearly white of thy wreathed brow — 
Too lovely are these — and too beautiful thou, 
To brave the chill gale, and the salt-sea foam ; 
No, no ! thou art made for my island-home. 

" I love thee — I love thee— thou fair-hair'd boy ! 
And have waited thee long in this home of joy ; 
I have lean'd on the bare rock day by day, 
From the purple-plumed dawn until gloaming gray ; 
And have wept when thy far-seen sail grew dim, 
Fading away from the water's rim. 

Ah ! me, I could tell of the sleepless night, 

Of the still deserted bower, 
And the sea-ward gaze in the pale moonlight, 

From yon lone and lighted tower ! — 
But enough — thou art come — and my task shall be 
To gather the honey-bees' gold for thee ; 
With sweets from the mountain, and sweets from the well, 
And others I could, but may not tell. 

"I love thee — I love thee — thou fair-hair'd boy ! 
My home shall be thine in this land of joy ; — 
I knew thou wert born, and thy couch hath made 
Of violet-wreaths, 'neath the musk-rose shade, 



THE ENCHANTED LAKE. 241 

Where the citrons' scent, and the sound of the spring 
Are borne on the faint wind's fitful wing. 
And, oh ! far other delights than these ! — 

Heaven's music to lull thee to rest, 
When thy form shall be lapp'd on a maiden's knees, 

And thy head on her warm white breast ; 
Bright glances to meet, soft kisses to close 
Thine eyes, when a moment they break their repose ; 
With none to disturb, and naught to alloy, 
Mine arms are thy home, thou fair-hair'd boy." 

Twice he shunned the sorceress ; but on the third 
day there was weeping in the streets of Geneva, and 
the citizens spoke not, but stood whispering in groupes, 
as if each was fearful of the solitude of his own 
thoughts. When the night came, its fearful darkness 
brought fresh terror with it, and they shuddered as 
they heard the lake growling in the distance — the 
morning brought its sun to dissipate their terrors, but 
Victor never saw its light again. 



m 2 



LOST FEELINGS. 



" The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 

Is left this vault to brag of." Shakspeare. 



There is an old age of the feelings, as well as of the 
possessor, and the first too much earlier feels its ap- 
proaches than the latter. A more woful, and yet a 
commoner picture does not exist, than they who have 
outlived those resources, which were the charms of their 
existence — all stimulants to their fancy and imagina- 
tion; and who, after treading an aerial world of their 
own creation in the more blooming period of life, 
rind themselves at last fettered to the very sphere from 
which inspiration had deceitfully emancipated them. Is 
the complaint due to nature, or ourselves, in granting us 
those feelings which we are doomed to survive and feel 
their abandonment ; or with us, for expending, in the 
most prodigal season of the heart, that spirit which 
was to animate the whole course of our existence ? 
Is there any one who yet looked back on the scenes 



244 LOST FEELINGS. 

of his youth, without the accompaniment of a sigh, 
blended as they are with joyous and melancholy fea- 
tures ? It cannot be disputed, if they partake more of 
one characteristic than the other, but what the effect 
is still mournfully the same. If they remind us of the 
season when all seemed a world to be enjoyed, of the 
delightful confidence of friendship, the witcheries of 
love, when the mind and the heart were equally un- 
jaundiced by suspicion or jealousy, we can only regret 
that the pleasure is gone, and it is the hollowest of en- 
joyments to attempt to revive that which is fled for 
ever : if, on the contrary, sorrow has thrown her dark- 
ling shadows over the scene, we have only the bitter 
satisfaction of knowing that no period of mortality is 
without its attendant annoyances; and we are in no 
degree relieved at the reflection that, however unin- 
durable we thought them then, the spirit has borne 
many so much more serious, as to render them com- 
paratively trifling or imaginary. 

Whoever returned to the home of his infancy with- 
out feeling a deep, though sweet, melancholy pervade 
him? It is not that we wish once more to become 
children, even were we to enjoy that blissful ignor- 
ance, which is the characteristic of the spring-time 



LOST FEELINGS. 245 

of life — that we regret the curling locks and smiling 
face of boyhood — the buoyant enthusiasm, or the 
flowers of hope, which spring up as often as they were 
trampled down — it is the waste of the senses., the 
expenditure of the heart's best sensations, that sums 
up the loss we have endured. Besides, what a volume 
of years we look back upon, from the present to that 
fairy period — what a train of recollections is it which 
links the two extremes — what a bird's-eye view, or 
rather history, of the mind seems at once presented to 
us — of elevated hope, too bright, too glorious, ever to 
be defeated — of complete and bitter disappointment — 
the chequering of joy and woe — that sweet inter- 
mixture of sunlight and shadow, by which the vista is 
occupied, crowd into that brief but comprehensive re- 
trospection. 

It is in such a looking back as this, that the dead, 
and, perhaps, the forgotten, start into life and memory; the 
dear guardians of our childhood, the mother, that ever- 
beloved companion of our infancy and boyhood, and the 
too frequently neglected monitor of after life, perhaps, 
invests the spot with her hallowed memory 5 how the 
heart yearns once more for the throbbing caress of 
natural affection — how the arms spontaneously open, 



246 LOST FEELINGS. 

although they receive but the blank space. It may be, 
the winding stream and its flowing banks, the tuft of 
trees that crowns the verdant hill, the green church- 
yard, and the ivy-covered steeple, or the silvery surface 
of the moonlight ocean, may reeal some one else — for it 
is one of the divinest attributes of love, in its purest 
sense, that it ever delights to invest itself in the most en- 
chanting of Nature's endeavours, and to wed itself in the 
closest of associations to the most beautiful of her scenery 
and objects. Ask, what recollections bring it in the deepest 
colors to the mind — is it the gay and splendid saloon ? 
if so, at once it droops its sweet head under the heated at- 
mosphere, in the fluctuating crowd of busy life; or by 
the sounding cataract — the meandering river — the time- 
worn tower and its constant evergreen — these are the 
scenes which bring the real poetry of the heart into action, 
which drain from the seat of feeling all the gross and 
animal portions of our nature, and so refines it, as to 
prevent the introduction of a less attractive or amiable 
guest. 

Pure, deep, aye, and lofty as they are, who is un- 
candid enough to say, that the recollections even of first 
love are not of a painful nature ? How seldom it ter- 
minates happily when the feelings have been consulted 



LOST FEELINGS. 247 

in preference to judgment — when that lag-behind, 
Reason (who invariably arrives after her time), has 
been anticipated by Impulse, and not until the wounds 
are beginning to close, and are nearly seared by the hot 
iron of misery. The vanity, the folly of life, at once 
places the retrospect in as ridiculous as in a painful point 
of view ; that we are our own tormentors appears to be 
perfectly indisputable, and yet, with all the increased wis- 
dom of years, the bitter truths of experience, and the 
attendant consequences of such folly, tears, does he not 
feel irresolute at his own suggestion ? Could he spend 
another hour beneath that tree, or by the side of that 
soft flowing river, with her — would he not hang up 
philosophy for a cold-hearted monitor — leave reason for 
lawyers and mathematicians, and sing with the poet — 

6i Give me back, give me back, the wild freshness of morning, 
Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's blest light." 

There are few circumstances which point out the al- 
teration which a few years of experience make in our 
sentiments and affections, more forcibly, than the cool- 
ness and, perhaps, contempt, which, after being well 
buffeted about in the world, we look upon those objects 
which once aroused the wild and mysterious in our 

m 5 



248 LOST FEELINGS. 

minds, which soon become so thoroughly indifferent to 
them. 

Were there nothing to make us wish for a return of 
the spring of our life, more than the certainty of once 
more enjoying the beauties of the authors our youth has 
delighted in, there are, I believe, few who could resist 
the temptation. They are a charm that has fled — an 
amulet sweet with the fragrance of the past — the magic 
spirit that spread the bloom of romance in our veins — 
the books remain the same, but the man is not the 
boy. 

He whose mind is soaring to reach the apex of am- 
bitious grandeur, cannot feel interested with Gil Bias 
in the robber's cave; nor is it likely that the cal- 
culating money-maker, or methodical lawyer, can ex- 
perience any inclination to accompany the Knight of 
the Rueful Countenance in his erratic career. Will he, 
who is accustomed to the frightful realities of life, 
shudder once more at the half marble, and half human, 
Prince of the Black Isles ? nay, he would not sit up 
and listen to her stories, were the Arabian sultana 
inclined again to pour forth her flood of sparkling and 
glowing imagination, Alas ! were he certain of meet- 



LOST FEELINGS. 249 

ing with an undiscovered island, and a man Friday to 
boot, show me him, "turned" of five and twenty, who 
would wish himself another Robinson Crusoe. 

Romance ! dear romance ! how I cling to thee yet 
with all the devotion of a first love. How my pen dotes 
to linger near the scenes you have invested with your 
fairy spells — how I love to dwell near your enchanted 
fountain, while the spirits of the past seem gathering in 
thick array around me. 

As the shades of the ancient warriors, when danger 
was thinning the ranks of their living descendants, 
sometimes loved to mingle once more with their ranks, 
so the ghosts of former joys, when the present has little 
or no charm for us, will occasionally arise, and with 
their visionary assistance, enable us to sustain the 
gloomy conflicts with which the spirit is overcharged. 

It is in such a moment as this that memory seems 
ready to open forth her stores at the touch of the 
slightest spring, and it is such a moment as that in which 
I am at present actuated ; and, as I feel a more than or- 
dinary inclination for confession, I shall "make example 
it," by recalling those excitements which form the 
leading epochas of my mind's earlier history. 

They were as varied as the emotions which they oc- 



250 LOST FEELINGS. 

casioned, and were the first kiss from the lips that I 
loved, but this is a theme which most likely is more in- 
teresting to myself than another, yet it arose like a 
flower in my soul, shedding its fragrance through my 
blood, and has lived unfading there ever afterwards. The 
feeling never before nor since surprised me ; so beau- 
tiful, because it was so new; it has left its charm like 
a seal on my memory, and with that will it live and 
die. 

Fresh and natural as these sensations were, they 
were powerless, compared with those produced by that 
master piece of Schiller, "The Robbers/' I knew not that 
such a work was in existence, till it was accidentally 
placed in my hand. I looked at the first page out of 
curiosity, and the remainder I read, or literally de- 
voured, as if fearful that some irresistible power would 
snatch the book from my hand, and I should never 
again meet with it. I no longer remembered that my 
attention was rivetted by the offspring of a brain, that 
was composed of the same perishable matter as my own ; 
in the lofty occupation of the author, I forgot my in- 
dividual existence, and became a denizen of another soil 
— it was not the 

" Baseless fabric of a vision !" 



LOST FEELINGS. 251 

but an embodied dream. The black forest was the scene, 
and I heard the merry chant of the robbers echo through 
its shade, and started back as if I saw the dark and 
mysterious Francis before me, giving vent to the gloomy 
workings of his mind. The soft, the martyred, Amelia, 
was with me too — what a spell seems to hang over me, 
while recalling the witchery of that ideal creation. 
Mind! mind! whose offspring excellest its maker, 
which can give seeming breath and being to objects 
that dwell but within its own deep caverns — the re- 
collection of the past of woman, dear and beautiful as 
she is, could not call into life stronger feelings than 
those which are occasioned by the mere fashioning of a 
brain as mortal as mine own. She is, indeed, a poet's 
dream, with sensibilities as soft as ever warmed a female 
breast — with loftiness of thought, and exclusiveness of 
devotion, which ever fired the patriot soul to glory ; 
and Charles, nature seems excelled in this character, 
and yet, although we never saw such a man in nature, 
there is every thing that can be admired in humanity. 
We were sworn friends from our first introduction. I 
sympathized with him as with one in whose heart and 
mind there was not a shade of difference. I fancied I 
saw the noble expression of his countenance illumined 



252 LOST FEELINGS. 

above mortality, when, on the mountain's brow, he gazes 
on the decline of the day-god, and wishes he may die 
with him in unclouded glory. I imagined the conflict 
of love, grief, and despair, when he delivers up his 
soul's treasure, his Amelia, as a pledge of honor to the 
robbers. Courage, love, and determination, must lose 
their excitements in me if ever I forget the feelings 
for which I am indebted to Schiller's masterly drama. 

But I had not yet had my fill of romance; a na- 
tive of an inland city, I had never, till the morning 
of life was nearly passed, seen the sea. For that pur- 
pose I made an express journey, and although I had 
managed to live a pretty considerable portion of time 
without that gratification, I found my impatience be- 
come almost insupportable, as I came nearer the 
grandest of Nature's work, but which did not take place 
till night had set in. 

Although the expectation of what I was about to 
witness absorbed the whole of my thoughts, I was fairly 
by the sea-side before I was aware of its proximity. 
I looked from the windows of the vehicle, but darkness 
enveloped all in its grasp ; still the roaring of the water 
had that singular effect which baffles description, or 
analysis — that solemnity of thought, and vastnessof idea, 



LOST FEELINGS. 



253 



which it awakens, only exists in those who have felt it. 
The moaning of the winds as they travelled over the 
waters, and the lashing of the waves, were like the 
choruses of fallen angels confined in their mighty depths ; 
the splash of the billows, as they split on the shore, 
seemed to create a scene where mighty and invisible 
beings were waging a wrathful war. 

I went to my lodgings, and impatiently awaited the 
return of day-light ; to sleep was impossible, in the im- 
mediate vicinity of that object, which, in my eagerness 
to view, seemed to swallow up every other. When 
the gray tint of the dawning day had disappeared from 
my chamber, I threw back the curtains, and opened the 
window. The sun was just emerging from his dark 
panoply of clouds, which rolled from its glorious pre- 
sence, while his young beams danced over the mighty 
scene that surrounded me. With what a deep and 
earnest intent the waters seemed to form themselves 
into masses, and then buVst into fragments of uncon- 
trollable grandeur, 

"Shaking their white heads in heaven," 
as if daring every element to prevent their progress. 
My imagination seemed filled beyond the power of its 
grasping, and my idea of the lofty and sublime more 
than realized. 



254 LOST FEELINGS. 

But since the time these events took place,, I begin 
to think kissing a very trifling occupation of time — 
Schiller as something less than a god — and a taste of sea- 
sickness I found a sufficient cooler to any romantic ideas 
I had formed of the ocean. 

Yet still, with all the consciousness of your vanity 
and emptiness, Scenes of my youth ! Feelings of the past, 
farewell, my heart yearns for thy loss ! but memory is too 
vivid a record for thy epitaph — come not again in the 
night time of sorrow and busy recollection, the canvas 
of your deeds is already painted. But there is one 
memory, one feeling, yet clings to me, and dares forget- 
fulness ! it lives, though the object which gave it birth 
had ceased existing. Too pure, too deep, to be crushed, 
live as thou hast twined round my heart, and be as 
ever the animating flame of this joyless spirit. What 
sacred spell has bound me to life, when its every charm 
has departed — when weighed down with gloom — op- 
pressed with sickness, and maddened with undeserved 
injury ? What threw back the recoiling blood from the 
dried up veins, and braced the fluctuating pulse ? The 
memory of the dead, the unforgotten * 

The visions of youth may deceive for awhile — romance 
may spread her halo of deceptious light, but they die 
before their objects; but the feeling which truth has 



LOST FEELINGS. 255 

stamped on the heart — which affection has cherished — 
lives beyond the dust, and clings verdantly and firmly 
even round the tomb. Are we not yet united, thee in 
thy immaterial nature, and I in all the memory of what 
has been ; yet nearer, and nearer, as I approach that 
bourne, which thou hast already reached, still more im- 
measurable seems the distance — how vain, how hollow, 

the wish : — 

Oh ! had I the wings of a dove, 
How soon would I reach thee again. 



It is the calm and holy hour of midnight, and saving 
the low muttering of the wind as it passes over the 
lake, and the shrill cries of the heron on its desolate 
shore, all is of that perfect stillness as one might ima- 
gine of eternity. When every thing around him seems 
hastening, or brought to a close, the period for drawing 
the curtains around the scene of his endeavours appears 
to the author to have arrived. 

Of the vanity, the inconsistency, the capriciousness, 
of the foregoing pages, he, perhaps, is as sensible as 
a human mind can be to its defects, and yet, as the of- 
ferings of his earlier years, not ashamed of. Had time 
mellowed them, they might have been improved, but 
they would have lost in the exchange the freshness and 



256 LOST FEELINGS. 

buoyancy of youth ; the polishing hand of art might 
have softened down their asperities, but the truth of 
nature would have been the purchase. He views them 
as the record of earlier thoughts, and untampered feel- 
ings, and, therefore, as things which are entitled, from 
their fidelity, to remain undisturbed— as 

" Glimpses of glory ne'er forgot, 

Which faU like beams on the sunset sea, 

That once have been, but now are not, 
But what ne'er again may brightly be." 

Conscious as he is that he is now acting the egotist's 
part, yet, as this is his first as well as his last appear- 
ance — his drama in one act — and ere judgment is pro- 
nounced on him, the curtain of his existence may have 
fallen — he cannot but be as insensible to censure as to 
applause ; yet, the hope which feeds the lamp of his 
flickering spirit is, that should this legacy ever meet the 
eye of the w r orld, of which, ere this he has ceased to be 
an unit, that those who have lingered to hear his last, 
may meet, with equal serenity, that word to him, too full 
of meaning, and which time to him has already uttered. 

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